Emerging SPECT Technologies
Description
Nuclear medicine is currently experiencing significant growth, driven largely by the expanding use of radiopharmaceutical therapies. This growth has renewed interest in SPECT/CT system design, particularly the transition from conventional dual-headed NaI-based gamma cameras, the decades-long workhorse of general nuclear medicine, to novel full-ring systems employing semiconductor detectors. These full-ring SPECT/CT systems offer substantial gains in patient throughput, enabling single-bed acquisitions in only a few minutes compared with the 20–30 minute acquisitions typical of standard dual-headed systems. This shift represents a fundamental departure from decades of established clinical practice. As medical physicists, it is imperative that we understand both the physics underlying these systems and the characteristics of the data they produce, including potential limitations and implementation challenges. This session will provide an overview of the physics, reconstruction methods, and clinical implementation of full-ring SPECT/CT systems, with an emphasis on practical considerations relevant to clinical medical physicists.