Dynamic heart phantom for the quality control of SPECT equipment

A nuclear imaging of heart is a noninvasive procedure that reveals the cardiac structure and physiology enabling evaluation of cardiac function. According to the regulations published by the Polish Government and the Polish Ministry of Health, the nuclear medicine departments must follow the new legislation which has imposed quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) of equipment and medical testing procedures as compulsory. The foremost reason to perform QC tests of medical imaging equipment, using ionizing radiation, is to assure the provision of the best possible diagnostic service to the patient with the least radiological hazard. One of the most common ways of testing in nuclear medicine is using phantoms. The aim of this study was to design and perform a dynamic heart phantom. The heart phantom was designed according to directive of the ICRU Report 48. It consists of a pump, tubes, cardiac volume and a membrane simulating left ventricle. The pump compresses and decompresses membrane. The pumping frequency can be changed from 60 to 200 bpm. The phantom cardiac volume should be filled with radiopharmaceutical. The elaborated dynamic heart phantom is used for QC of imaging system in nuclear medicine department. The QC measurements were performed with the phantom filled with 45-50 MBq of (99m)Tc-MIBI solution and placed in water filled anthropomorphic torso phantom. The dynamic heart phantom can also be used to simulate all types of the myocardial infarctions and help to choose the best geometry of the measurement.