Comparison of sliced and whole lung sets for the LLNL and JAERI torso phantoms using GE detectors

The performance characteristics of sliced lung sets were compared to lung sets with activity homogeneously distributed throughout the lung tissue substitute material. The activity estimate from planar sources differs from the estimate from homogeneous sources by a factor of 0.88 to 1.09 depending on the photon energy. This error is small compared to other uncertainties commonly encountered in lung counting, i.e., activity deposition in the lung, detector placement, size difference between individuals, etc. Sliced lung sets could be used instead of homogeneous lung sets to test or provide an interim calibration for a lung counting system.