Significance of Daily Quality Assurance Scan in Hardware Artifact Evaluation.

A failure in any of the hardware components can lead to degradation in image quality and accuracy of quantification. Few artifacts may bring serious impacts on the image quality and finally lead to the wrong diagnosis. We encountered a sudden appearance of the cold area, being more prominently visible on Positron Emission Tomography image in comparison to the fused image. A daily quality assurance scan was performed to evaluate the status of the machine after giving a restart to the system. It was discovered that the module number 9-11 showed dark black color in the graph due to scarcity of counts indicating a failure/malfunctioning of the detector or electronic board-Cassette Electronic Module board (CEM board) supporting the module 9-11. Further evaluation of the system helped us diagnose that one of the electronic board (CEM Board) had become nonfunctional. A new functional electronic board (CEM board) was ordered and placed and the error rectified.