Rotational artifact in phase imaging of cardiac scans: potential pitfalls in diagnosis

In the past few years, we have occasionally observed linear bands in the phase images of gated cardiac blood-pool scans along the interventricular septum region among patients with normal septal motions. Our retrospective study investigated the cause of out-of-phase bands of 12 patients. We documented through review of cines, computer analysis of gated cardiac blood-pool scintigraphy data, and correlation with echocardiograms that this phenomenon was artifact introduced by rotational movements of the heart. It is important for nuclear physicians to recognize this rotational artifact on the phase analysis image in order to avoid the erroneous misdiagnosis of wall motion abnormalities of the septum.