title: Usefulness of abdominal belt for restricting respiratory cardiac motion and improving image quality in myocardial perfusion PET.
abstract: The current study evaluated the usefulness of a belt technique for restricting respiratory motion of the heart and for improving image quality of13N-ammonia myocardial PET/CT, and it assessed the tolerability of the belt technique in the clinical setting.
  
  
  
  Myocardial13N-ammonia PET/CT scanning was performed in 8 volunteers on Discovery PET/CT 690 with an optical respiratory motion tracking system. Emission scans were performed with and without an abdominal belt. The amplitude of left ventricular (LV) respiratory motion was measured on respiratory-gated PET images. The degree of erroneous decreases in regional myocardial uptake was visually assessed on ungated PET images using a 5-point scale (0 = normal, 1/2/3 = mild/moderate/severe decrease, 4 = defect). The tolerability of the belt technique was evaluated in 53 patients.
  
  
  
  All subjects tolerated the belt procedure. The amplitude of the LV respiratory motion decreased significantly with the belt (8.1 ± 7.1 vs 12.1 ± 6.1 mm, P = .0078). The belt significantly improved the image quality scores in the anterior (0.29 ± 0.81 vs 0.71 ± 1.04, P = .015) and inferior (0.33 ± 0.92 vs 1.04 ± 1.04, P < .0001) wall. No adverse events related to the belt technique were observed.
  
  
  
  The belt technique restricts LV respiratory motion and improves the image quality of myocardial PET/CT, and it is well tolerated by patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University Hospital, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan. yasutaka@clin.medic.mie-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Yasutaka
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ichikawa
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University Hospital, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan.
authors.forename: Yoya
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tomita
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University Hospital, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan.
authors.forename: Masaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ishida
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University Hospital, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan.
authors.forename: Shigeki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University Hospital, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan.
authors.forename: Kan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University Hospital, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan.
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sakuma
mesh_terms: D000005:Abdomen; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D016477:Artifacts; D006321:Heart / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009038:Motion; D055414:Myocardial Perfusion Imaging; D009590:Nitrogen Radioisotopes; D000072078:Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography; D012119:Respiration; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D009590:Nitrogen Radioisotopes; C000615247:Nitrogen-13
keywords: N-13 ammonia; PET; PET/CT imaging; image artifacts; image quality