Thyroid scintigraphy: pinhole images versus rectilinear scans

99mTc-pertechnetate thyroid scintigraphy was performed on 67 patients with a pinhole camera and a rectilinear scanner. The dual set of images was interpreted blindly by four nuclear medicine physicians. Observer performance with each of the two imaging techniques was evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) method and by multivariate information analysis (MIA). Performance was superior for the four observers when interpreting the pinhole images, identification accuracy ranging from 70 to 94% with the pinhole images and only 49 to 63% with the rectilinear scanner.