Performance evaluations of recent wide field scintillation gamma cameras

Performance characteristics of four recent wide field scintillation gamma cameras were evaluated for 140-keV gamma imaging. Parameters measured included intrinsic spatial resolution, energy resolution, uniformity and linearity distortion, and count-rate capability and its influence on the spatial resolution. The system performance of the cameras was compared with representative parallel-channel collimators in terms of spatial resolution and relative sensitivity. Visual imaging comparisons of each camera system were performed by taking images of Rollo phantom containing four different lesion sizes, with four different contrast ratios, for equal imaging time.