The Role of Radionuclides and Physical Parameters in SPECT and PET Cardiac Imaging

Abstract

This research aimed to Demonstrate if myocardial perfusion by positron emission tomography (PET) study provides an accurate means for diagnosing coronary artery disease (CAD) the ability to record changes in left ventricular function from rest to peak stress and to quantify myocardial perfusion comparing to single photon emission tomography (SPECT),

Methodology: 20 studies of PET and SPECT cardiac cases divide as: Group 1: 10 studies of SPECT cardiac cases divided into 5perfusions (3 ischemia, 2infraction) and 5 viability. Group 2: 10 studies of PET cardiac cases divided into 5 perfusions (3 ischemia, 2 infraction) and 5 viability. In this retrospective Study data was collected from both SPECT and PET unit from the patient's files which include the calculation of all the physical parameters ''EF, EDV, ESV'' which shows the perfusion of the heart. Descriptive statistics are done by using Descriptive statistics calculation in SPSS program.

Result: Regards to our results, there is significant difference in quantitative physical parameters which are Ejection Fraction, End Diastolic volume and End systolic of the heart for both STRESS and REST studies in SPECT and PET, by calculating the Std. deviation we found that the Std. deviation of STRESS study in PET is much smaller than it is value in SPECT that means the accuracy of PET is much higher than SPECT

Conclusion: In conclusion, we find that PET is highly accurate method for assessing myocardial perfusion and metabolism in evaluation of coronary heart diseases, and allow more accurate detection of ischemic and infarcted myocardium than SPECT. PET has less radiation burden to patients than SPECT because of short lived radionuclides used. In addition, PET has higher spatial resolution than SPECT. But nowadays they use SPECT more than PET because PET is more expensive, require cyclotron and unavailable in all hospitals.