Scatter correction based on an artificial neural network for 99mTc and 123I dual-isotope SPECT in myocardial and brain imaging.
The aim of this study was to elucidate the clinical usefulness of scatter correction with an artificial neural network (ANN) in 99mTc and 123I dual-isotope SPECT.


METHODS
Two algorithms for ANN scatter correction were tested: ANN-10 and ANN-3 employing 10 and 3 energy windows for data acquisition, respectively. Three patients underwent myocardial or brain SPECT with one of the following combinations of radiopharmaceuticals administered: 99mTc-tetrofosmin and 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG), 99mTc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile (MIBI) and 123I-beta-methyl-paraiodophenyl-pentadecanoic acid (BMIPP), or 99mTc-ethyl-cistainate dimmer (ECD) and 123I-iomazenil. The patients were also referred for single-isotope imaging incorporating conventional triple-energy window (TEW) scatter correction. Crosstalk- and scatter-corrected 99mTc- and 123I-SPECT images in dual-isotope acquisition with ANN were compared with those in single-isotope acquisition.


RESULTS
The ANN method well separated 123I and 99mTc primary photons. Although ANN-10 yielded images of poor quality, ANN-3 offered comparable image quality with the single-isotope scan without significant increase of acquisition time.


CONCLUSIONS
The proposed method is clinically useful because it provides various combinations of information without anatomical misregistration with one acquisition.
Bai
Jingming
J
21st Century Center of Excellence Program, School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. bjingming@goo.ne.jp
Hashimoto
Jun
J
Ogawa
Koichi
K
Nakahara
Tadaki
T
Suzuki
Takayuki
T
Kubo
Atsushi
A
D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology*; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D013667:Technetium; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D013667:Technetium