Evaluation of general-purpose collimators against high-resolution collimators with resolution recovery with a view to reducing radiation dose in myocardial perfusion SPECT: A preliminary phantom study.

Background: There is a growing focus on reducing radiation dose to patients undergoing myocardial perfusion imaging. This preliminary phantom study aims to evaluate the use of general-purpose collimators with resolution recovery (RR) to allow a reduction in patient radiation dose.

Methods: Images of a cardiac torso phantom with inferior and anterior wall defects were acquired on a GE Infinia and Siemens Symbia T6 using both high-resolution and general-purpose collimators. Imaging time, a surrogate for administered activity, was reduced between 35% and 40% with general-purpose collimators to match the counts acquired with high-resolution collimators. Images were reconstructed with RR with and without attenuation correction. Two pixel sizes were also investigated. Defect contrast was measured.

Results: Defect contrast on general-purpose images was superior or comparable to the high-resolution collimators on both systems despite the reduced imaging time. Infinia general-purpose images required a smaller pixel size to be used to maintain defect contrast, while Symbia T6 general-purpose images did not require a change in pixel size to that used for standard myocardial perfusion SPECT.

Conclusion: This study suggests that general-purpose collimators with RR offer a potential for substantial dose reductions while providing similar or better image quality to images acquired using high-resolution collimators.