[Quantitative study of 99mTc-Technegas SPECT for ventilatory impairment in pulmonary emphysema]

99mTc-Technegas scintigraphy is used to evaluate ventilation abnormalities in patients with pulmonary emphysema. Although abnormalities of ventilation distribution are easy to find, no objective index exits. Evaluation is subjective and differs with each radiologist. Thus, it is difficult to compare cases and the clinical course in the same case. The present study for quantitative evaluation demonstrated an excellent correlations between mean voxel values of the lung and stage classification. Furthermore, a correlation was observed between the mean and FEV1.0%. These findings indicate that the quantitative analysis of SPECT data is useful for classifying clinical stage and comparing cases.