Cardiac SPECT with or without motion correction : its effect on image interpretation.

Abstract

Introduction The requests for SPECT imaging are increasing for proper evaluation of the heart. During this scan, the heart needs to be maintained in the same position but this is not always possible due to voluntary or involuntary motion. A new feature of motion correction is nowadays being used in order to avoid patient motion having a significant effect on the image quality. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of motion correction on image quality and diagnostic information. Methodology The research design used for this study was a prospective, correlative design with a quantitative approach. The research tool was a checklist given to the nuclear medicine physician to score which image had better quality of the two and to mark on a Likert scale the degree of difference between the two. Two sets of images of patients who had undergone a cardiac SPECT scan were given to the nuclear medicine physician for each patient; one with motion correction and one without. Twenty five cardiac SPECT scans were used to gather the data. Results The results obtained indicated that there is a difference in image quality between the images obtained with motion correction from those without. These results supported the literature found. The use of the motion correction technique for patients with significant motion during the SPECT acquisition resulted in the production of images of higher diagnostic value. Conclusion Although such results were obtained from this study, the study is in no way considered conclusive. Further research is needed in order to produce more significant results. The researcher recommends that the study should he done with a larger sample size in order to be able to generalize the results to the entire population.