Recent advances in cardiac SPECT instrumentation and system design

Recent advances in clinical cardiac SPECT instrumentation are reviewed from a systems perspective. New hardware technologies include pixelated scintillator and semiconductor detector elements; photodetectors such as position-sensitive photomultiplier tubes (PSPMT), avalanche photodiodes (APD) and silicon photomultipliers (SiPM); and novel cardiac collimation methods. There are new approaches for positioning detectors and controlling their motion during cardiac imaging. Software technology advances include iterative image reconstruction with modeling of Poisson statistics and depth-dependent collimator response. These new technologies enable faster acquisitions, the lowering of administered activity and radiation dose, and improved image resolution. Higher sensitivity collimators are a significant factor enabling faster acquisitions. Several clinical systems incorporating new technologies are discussed and different system designs can achieve similar performance. With detector elements such as APDs, SiPMs and semiconductors that are insensitive to magnetic fields, the potential for cardiac SPECT imagers that are MRI compatible opens up new frontiers in clinical cardiac research and patient care.