[Validation of the imagamma interface for connecting gamma cameras to personal computers]

An electronic interface, imagamma, has been designed in order to link analog gamma cameras to IBM personal computers (PCs). The performance of the interface was assessed for a camera-computer system composed by a GE Maxicamera II-400T gamma camera and an IBM PC, which has a DX 80486 processor, 8 Mb RAM and a suitable acquisition and processing software. Quality control tests for gamma camera-computer systems, established by the International Atomic Energy Agency in the IAEA-TECDOC-602 for <>, were performed. The main performance characteristics of the gamma camera: intrinsic flood field uniformity, intrinsic spatial resolution and spatial linearity were tested as well as the system time performance for dynamic and gated studies. The results obtained for the camera-computer system performance parameters show a good stability. Those results concerning the dynamic characteristics of the interface are between the limits of acceptability, established for each test by the IAEA standards. We conclude that the imagamma interface has suitable performance characteristics to link analog gamma cameras to PC based computer systems in order to be used with clinical application purposes.