| خلاصه مقاله | Aim: The present study aims to assess the impact of various collimators as well as iterative reconstruction protocols on the quantitative evaluation of Gallium-67 (67Ga) SPECT/CT imaging.
Materials and Methods: Optimal settings using various collimators and iterative reconstruction protocols were evaluated by imaging a NEMA phantom, including six sphere inserts, filled with 67Ga. The collimators examined were low-energy high-resolution (LEHR), and high-energy (HE) collimators. Furthermore, the SPECT data were reconstructed using the ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) method with various combinations of iterations and subsets. The performance was quantified using contrast recovery (CR), coefficient of variation (COV), and contrast to noise ratio (CNR) metrics.
Results: Processing images acquired by the HE collimator yielded higher CR and CNR. The mean CR (CNR) in all spheres was increased by 80.4 %( 82.1%) for the HE collimator in comparison with the LEHR collimator. The comparison of the various reconstruction parameters in terms of the contrast recovery and contrast to noise ratio has shown that in all spheres, higher iterations and subsets provided a higher CR and lower CNR compared to lower ones. The relative difference (%) between the minimum and maximum of CR (CNR) with the increase in iterations × subsets from 16 to 48 were 31.4% (-19.2%) for 10 mm sphere diameter, 30.0% (-22.7%) for 13 mm sphere diameter, 31.5% (-22.4%) for 17 mm sphere diameter, 31.6% (-25.0%) for 22 mm sphere diameter, 27.5% (-26.3%) for 28 mm sphere diameter, 24.9% (-27.9%) for 37 mm sphere diameter, respectively. Furthermore, in all iterations and subsets, higher variation was seen for smaller spheres in comparison with larger spheres. An increase in iterations × subsets from 16 to 48 led to the COV increasing by 17.2 %, 16.67%, 15.50%, 14.4%, 14.2%, and 14.1% for 10 mm, 13 mm, 17 mm, 22 mm,28 mm ,and 37 mm sphere diameter, respectively.
Conclusion: The study demonstrates that using HE collimator has the potential to improve both the visual interpretation and quantitative analysis of 67Ga SPECT/CT. Our results provide evidence that 67Ga SPECT/CT quantitation accuracy is dependent on the collimator selection, lesion size, and reconstruction protocols. Overall, choosing the right combination of data acquisition and reconstruction protocols needs to be specified carefully. |