New Generation SPECT Cameras Based on Cadmium-Zinc Telluriide Technology

Despite recent developments in positron emission tomography technology, cardiac single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging continues to be the main stream of nuclear cardiology because of its high accessibility and wider clinical use. For SPECT imaging, cadmium-zinc telluride (CZT) based detectors have advantages over conventional Anger type detectors with more flexible camera design thanks to the small sized CZT detectors and high contrast imaging because of its high energy resolution. Approximately 15 years ago, CZT-based cardiac SPECT cameras became commercially available, resulting in great success in clinical practice. However, this was just the beginning of the CZT era. To date, CZT-based general purpose whole-body camera and 3 dimensional full-ring SPECT systems have been developed and become commercially available with promising initial results. Although there still are areas to be addressed before wider clinical use, the CZT-based technology may provide significant progresses in nuclear cardiology as new generation SPECT systems. Finally, newer materials for the semiconductor detectors are under investigation or development, suggesting that there will be more developments in cardiac SPECT technology.