title: Evaluation of patients with coronary artery disease. IQ-SPECT protocol in myocardial perfusion imaging: Preliminary results.
abstract: Quantification of myocardial perfusion scintigraphy is often performed to assist physicians in detecting coronary artery disease (CAD). Modern software and hardware packages provide improvements able to shorten scan time and/or reduce administered activity, without compromising image quality in radionuclide myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Recently, multifocal collimators were introduced with dedicated reconstruction software, named IQ-SPECT, able to shorten considerably scan time. The aim of our study was to compare this new protocol to the already validated standard ones.
  
  
  METHODS
  We enrolled 43 patients with suspected or diagnosed CAD. All patients underwent a two-days protocol radionuclide myocardial perfusion scan at rest and after a standard stress test (exercise or dipyridamole) after administering 99mTc-tetrofosmin. Images were acquired on a 2-head gamma camera and reconstructed with attenuation correction. All the images were scored using a 17-segments model by three experienced physicians, blind to clinical data and to acquisition and processing modality.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  No significant differences were recorded in perfusion scores on paired t-test and Wilcoxon among the full-time images reconstructed with standard protocol or IQ-SPECT, both overall on a 17-segments evaluation and when considering different territories of distribution. MPI with IQ-SPECT protocol can be acquired at about a quarter scan time without disagreement compared to full time scan acquisition performed with standard protocols.
authors.affiliation: Dr. Federico Caobelli, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Fondazione Poliambulanza, Via Bissolati 57, 25100 Brescia,Italy, Tel./Fax +39/030/351 81 04, E-mail: fedefournier@libero.it.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Caobelli
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pizzocaro
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Paghera
authors.forename: U P
authors.initials: UP
authors.lastname: Guerra
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000465:Algorithms; D055426:Cardiac-Gated Single-Photon Emission Computer-Assisted Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D055414:Myocardial Perfusion Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009943:Organophosphorus Compounds; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D010865:Pilot Projects; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
chemical_list: D009943:Organophosphorus Compounds; D015609:Organotechnetium Compounds; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; C078700:technetium tc-99m tetrofosmin
keywords: 99mTc tetrofosmin SPECT/CT; Coronary artery disease; IQ-SPECT; low counts acquisition; myocardial perfusion imaging