Clinical application of autologous technetium-99m-labelled eosinophils to detect focal eosinophilic inflammation in the lung.

The detection of focal eosinophilic inflammation by non-invasive means may aid the diagnosis and follow-up of a variety of pulmonary pathologies. All current methods of detection involve invasive sampling, which may be contraindicated or too high-risk to be performed safely. The use of injected autologous technetium-99m (Tc-99m)-labelled eosinophils coupled to single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) has been demonstrated to localise eosinophilic inflammation in the lungs of a patient with antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-positive vasculitis.

Experimental results from a prototype slit-slat collimator with mixed multiplexed and non-multiplexed data.

We have previously shown with simulations that a gain in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can be obtained by using mixed multiplexed (MX) and non-MX data in a slit-slat SPECT system as compared to using non-MX data only. We have now developed a prototype slit-slat collimator for a conventional gamma camera in order to validate these simulation results. The prototype collimator consists of seven slits and multiple parallel slats.

Performance evaluation of a pixellated Ge Compton camera.

An ongoing project is being carried out to develop a high purity germanium (HPGe) Compton camera for medical applications. The Compton camera offers many potential advantages over the conventional gamma camera. The camera reported in this paper comprises two pixellated germanium detector planes housed 9.