Impact of Attenuation Correction, Collimator, and Iterative Reconstruction Protocols on 67Ga SPECT/CT Quantification
-
Sahar Rezaei
,
Saeed Farzanehfar
,
Leyla Badrzadeh
,
Faezeh Assadi
,
Nasim Vahidfar
,
Peyman Sheikhzadeh
Abstract
Purpose: The main goal of this study was to determine the optimal collimator in the absence of medium energy collimators along with the impact of Attenuation Correction (AC) and different iterative reconstruction protocols on the quantitative evaluation of Gallium-67 (67Ga) SPECT/CT imaging.
Materials and Methods: A GE Discovery 670 dual-head SPECT/CT scanner and a NEMA phantom filled with 67Ga solution were used to scan the patients. The projections were acquired with both Low Energy High Resolution (LEHR) and High Energy General Purpose (HEGP) collimators, and CT images were acquired to evaluate the effect of attenuation correction. SPECT data were reconstructed using the ordered subset expectation maximization (OSEM) method with various combinations of iterations and subsets. The performance was quantified, and a clinical study validated the phantom study.
Results: Acquired images by the HEGP collimator yielded higher Contrast Recovery (CR) and Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR) in images with AC than those without non-AC (41.6% and 74.2%, respectively). The CNR in all spheres after AC was increased by 80.4% (82.1%) for the HEGP collimator against the LEHR collimator. Also, an increase in iterations × subsets from 16 to 48 led to the Coefficient of Variation (COV) increasing by 17.2%, 16.67%, 15.50%, 14.4%, 14.2%, and 14.1% for 10 mm to 37 mm sphere diameter, respectively.
Conclusion: CT-based AC and HEGP collimators can yield improved 67Ga SPECT quantification compared to Non-AC and LEHR collimators. The choice of the optimal collimator with the reconstruction protocol led to changes in the image quality and quantitative accuracy, emphasizing the need to carefully select the appropriate combination of data acquisition factors.
1- Ora Israel et al., "Two decades of SPECT/CT–the coming of age of a technology: an updated review of literature evidence." European journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, Vol. 46 (No. 10), pp. 1990-2012, (2019).
2- Michael Vaiman et al., "Low-radiation of technetium-99m-sestamibi and single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography to diagnose parathyroid lesions." World journal of nuclear medicine, Vol. 18 (No. 1), p. 52, (2019).
3- Taher Hosny, Magdy M Khalil, Abdo A Elfiky, and Wael M Elshemey, "Image quality characteristics of myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging using state-of-the-art commercial software algorithms: evaluation of 10 reconstruction methods." American Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Vol. 10 (No. 6), p. 375, (2020).
4- Daphne MV Huizing, Michiel Sinaasappel, Marien C Dekker, Marcel PM Stokkel, and Berlinda J de Wit–van der Veen, "177Lutetium SPECT/CT: Evaluation of collimator, photopeak and scatter correction." Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, Vol. 21 (No. 9), pp. 272-77, (2020).
5- Rene Nkoulou et al., "High efficiency gamma camera enables ultra-low fixed dose stress/rest myocardial perfusion imaging." European Heart Journal-Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol. 20 (No. 2), pp. 218-24, (2019).
6- NV Denisova and MM Ondar, "Effect of attenuation correction on image quality in emission tomography." in AIP Conference Proceedings, (2017), Vol. 1893 (No. 1): AIP Publishing LLC, p. 030015.
7- Seyed Ali Mirshahvalad, Mohammadreza Chavoshi, and Sepideh Hekmat, "Diagnostic performance of prone-only myocardial perfusion imaging versus coronary angiography in the detection of coronary artery disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis." Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, pp. 1-13, (2020).
8- Michael Ljungberg and P Hendrik Pretorius, "SPECT/CT: an update on technological developments and clinical applications." The British journal of radiology, Vol. 91 (No. 1081), p. 20160402, (2018).
9- Meysam Tavakoli and Marian Naij, "Quantitative evaluation of the effect of attenuation correction in SPECT images with CT-derived attenuation." in Medical Imaging 2019: Physics of Medical Imaging, (2019), Vol. 10948: International Society for Optics and Photonics, p. 109485U.
10- Brian G Abbott et al., "Contemporary cardiac SPECT imaging—innovations and best practices: an information statement from the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology." Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol. 25 (No. 5), pp. 1847-60, (2018).
11- Shimpei Ito et al., "Comparison of CTAC and prone imaging for the detection of coronary artery disease using CZT SPECT." Annals of nuclear medicine, Vol. 31 (No. 8), pp. 629-35, (2017).
12- Tim Van den Wyngaert, Filipe Elvas, Stijn De Schepper, John A Kennedy, and Ora Israel, "SPECT/CT: Standing on the shoulders of giants, it is time to reach for the sky!" Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 61 (No. 9), pp. 1284-91, (2020).
13- Sahar Rezaei, Pardis Ghafarian, Abhinav K Jha, Arman Rahmim, Saeed Sarkar, and Mohammad Reza Ay, "Joint compensation of motion and partial volume effects by iterative deconvolution incorporating wavelet-based denoising in oncologic PET/CT imaging." Physica Medica, Vol. 68pp. 52-60, (2019).
14- Sahar Rezaei et al., "The impact of iterative reconstruction protocol, signal-to-background ratio and background activity on measurement of PET spatial resolution." Japanese journal of radiology, Vol. 38 (No. 3), pp. 231-39, (2020).
15- Emilio BOMBARDIERL, Cumali AKTOLUN, Richard P BAUM, Angelika BISHOL-DELALOYE, John BUSCOMBE, and Jean Francois CHATAL, "67Ga scintigraphy: procedure guidelines for tumour imaging." European journal of nuclear medecine and molecular imaging Print, Vol. 30 (No. 12), pp. BP125-BP31, (2003).
16- Håkan Hall et al., "In vitro autoradiography of carcinoembryonic antigen in tissue from patients with colorectal cancer using multifunctional antibody TF2 and 67/68Ga-labeled haptens by pretargeting." American journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, Vol. 2 (No. 2), p. 141, (2012).
17- TATSUYA Miyamae, MASAYASU Kan, MUTSUMI Fujioka, KOUICHI Okada, YASUYUKI Yoshikawa, and JUNICHI Nishikawa, "67Ga-citrate scanning in hypernephroma." Clinical nuclear medicine, Vol. 3 (No. 6), pp. 225-28, (1978).
18- O Bělohlávek, J Brousil, J Pradáčová, V Votava, and Z Voslářová, "Objective assessment of 67Ga-citrate accumulation in lungs as an expression of sarcoidosis activity." (1989).
19- F Zayas et al., "67Ga-citrate distribution in solid hepatoma 22." European journal of nuclear medicine, Vol. 9 (No. 4), pp. 157-60, (1984).
20- Tomomitsu Higashi, Katuo Ito, Kaizo Shimura, Yukihiko Kinoshita, and Sakae Sakurai, "Clinical evaluation of 67Ga-citrate scanning in the oral region." Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Vol. 40 (No. 5), pp. 691-99, (1975).
21- Zeinab Bayat et al., "Preparation and validation of [67Ga] Ga-phytate kit and Monte Carlo dosimetry: An effort toward developing an impressive lymphoscintigraphy tracer." Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 331 (No. 2), pp. 691-700, (2022).
22- Meral T Ercan, Tülin Aras, Erkan Ünlenen, Mustafa Ünlü, Işil S Ünsal, and Zafer Hasçelik, "99mTc-citrate versus 67Ga-citrate for the scintigraphic visualization of inflammatory lesions." Nuclear medicine and biology, Vol. 20 (No. 7), pp. 881-87, (1993).
23- Irène Buvat, "Methodologies for quantitative SPECT." in Physics of PET and SPECT Imaging: CRC Press, (2017), pp. 217-32.
24- TH Farncombe, HC Gifford, MV Narayanan, PH Pretorius, EC Frey, and MA King, "Assessment of Scatter Compensation Strategies for 67 Ga SPECT Using Numerical Observers and Human LROC Studies." Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 45 (No. 5), pp. 802-12, (2004).
25- TH Farncombe et al., "An optimization of reconstruction parameters and investigation into the impact of photon scatter in /sup 67/Ga SPECT." IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 49 (No. 5), pp. 2148-54, (2002).
26- SC Moore, MF Kijewski, and MF Fakhri, "Collimator optimization for detection and quantitation tasks: application to gallium-67 imaging." IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Vol. 24 (No. 10), pp. 1347-56, (2005).
27- Mina Ouahman et al., "Collimator and Energy Window Evaluation in Ga-67 Imaging by Monte Carlo Simulation." Molecular imaging and radionuclide therapy, Vol. 29 (No. 3), p. 118, (2020).
28- Laura Demino, Paulo Ferreira, Francisco PM Oliveira, and Durval C Costa, "Comparison of the 90Y-labelled glass microspheres liver radioembolisation dosimetry with the estimated dosimetry obtained from pre-treatment 99mTc-MAA SPECT images reconstructed with and without attenuation correction." Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging & Visualization, Vol. 7 (No. 5-6), pp. 651-59, (2018).
29- Tobias Rydén, Martijn Van Essen, Ida Marin, Johanna Svensson, and Peter Bernhardt, "Deep-Learning Generation of Synthetic Intermediate Projections Improves 177Lu SPECT Images Reconstructed with Sparsely Acquired Projections." Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 62 (No. 4), pp. 528-35, (2021).
30- Youssef Bouzekraoui, Farida Bentayeb, Hicham Asmi, and Faustino Bonutti, "Energy window and contrast optimization for single-photon emission computed tomography bremsstrahlung imaging with yttrium-90." Indian journal of nuclear medicine: IJNM: the official journal of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, India, Vol. 34 (No. 2), p. 125, (2019).
31- Hicham Asmi, Farida Bentayeb, Youssef Bouzekraoui, Faustino Bonutti, and Sanae Douama, "Energy window and collimator optimization in lutetium-177 single-photon emission computed tomography imaging using Monte Carlo simulation." Indian journal of nuclear medicine: IJNM: the official journal of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, India, Vol. 35 (No. 1), p. 36, (2020).
2- Michael Vaiman et al., "Low-radiation of technetium-99m-sestamibi and single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography to diagnose parathyroid lesions." World journal of nuclear medicine, Vol. 18 (No. 1), p. 52, (2019).
3- Taher Hosny, Magdy M Khalil, Abdo A Elfiky, and Wael M Elshemey, "Image quality characteristics of myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging using state-of-the-art commercial software algorithms: evaluation of 10 reconstruction methods." American Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Vol. 10 (No. 6), p. 375, (2020).
4- Daphne MV Huizing, Michiel Sinaasappel, Marien C Dekker, Marcel PM Stokkel, and Berlinda J de Wit–van der Veen, "177Lutetium SPECT/CT: Evaluation of collimator, photopeak and scatter correction." Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics, Vol. 21 (No. 9), pp. 272-77, (2020).
5- Rene Nkoulou et al., "High efficiency gamma camera enables ultra-low fixed dose stress/rest myocardial perfusion imaging." European Heart Journal-Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol. 20 (No. 2), pp. 218-24, (2019).
6- NV Denisova and MM Ondar, "Effect of attenuation correction on image quality in emission tomography." in AIP Conference Proceedings, (2017), Vol. 1893 (No. 1): AIP Publishing LLC, p. 030015.
7- Seyed Ali Mirshahvalad, Mohammadreza Chavoshi, and Sepideh Hekmat, "Diagnostic performance of prone-only myocardial perfusion imaging versus coronary angiography in the detection of coronary artery disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis." Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, pp. 1-13, (2020).
8- Michael Ljungberg and P Hendrik Pretorius, "SPECT/CT: an update on technological developments and clinical applications." The British journal of radiology, Vol. 91 (No. 1081), p. 20160402, (2018).
9- Meysam Tavakoli and Marian Naij, "Quantitative evaluation of the effect of attenuation correction in SPECT images with CT-derived attenuation." in Medical Imaging 2019: Physics of Medical Imaging, (2019), Vol. 10948: International Society for Optics and Photonics, p. 109485U.
10- Brian G Abbott et al., "Contemporary cardiac SPECT imaging—innovations and best practices: an information statement from the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology." Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging, Vol. 25 (No. 5), pp. 1847-60, (2018).
11- Shimpei Ito et al., "Comparison of CTAC and prone imaging for the detection of coronary artery disease using CZT SPECT." Annals of nuclear medicine, Vol. 31 (No. 8), pp. 629-35, (2017).
12- Tim Van den Wyngaert, Filipe Elvas, Stijn De Schepper, John A Kennedy, and Ora Israel, "SPECT/CT: Standing on the shoulders of giants, it is time to reach for the sky!" Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 61 (No. 9), pp. 1284-91, (2020).
13- Sahar Rezaei, Pardis Ghafarian, Abhinav K Jha, Arman Rahmim, Saeed Sarkar, and Mohammad Reza Ay, "Joint compensation of motion and partial volume effects by iterative deconvolution incorporating wavelet-based denoising in oncologic PET/CT imaging." Physica Medica, Vol. 68pp. 52-60, (2019).
14- Sahar Rezaei et al., "The impact of iterative reconstruction protocol, signal-to-background ratio and background activity on measurement of PET spatial resolution." Japanese journal of radiology, Vol. 38 (No. 3), pp. 231-39, (2020).
15- Emilio BOMBARDIERL, Cumali AKTOLUN, Richard P BAUM, Angelika BISHOL-DELALOYE, John BUSCOMBE, and Jean Francois CHATAL, "67Ga scintigraphy: procedure guidelines for tumour imaging." European journal of nuclear medecine and molecular imaging Print, Vol. 30 (No. 12), pp. BP125-BP31, (2003).
16- Håkan Hall et al., "In vitro autoradiography of carcinoembryonic antigen in tissue from patients with colorectal cancer using multifunctional antibody TF2 and 67/68Ga-labeled haptens by pretargeting." American journal of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, Vol. 2 (No. 2), p. 141, (2012).
17- TATSUYA Miyamae, MASAYASU Kan, MUTSUMI Fujioka, KOUICHI Okada, YASUYUKI Yoshikawa, and JUNICHI Nishikawa, "67Ga-citrate scanning in hypernephroma." Clinical nuclear medicine, Vol. 3 (No. 6), pp. 225-28, (1978).
18- O Bělohlávek, J Brousil, J Pradáčová, V Votava, and Z Voslářová, "Objective assessment of 67Ga-citrate accumulation in lungs as an expression of sarcoidosis activity." (1989).
19- F Zayas et al., "67Ga-citrate distribution in solid hepatoma 22." European journal of nuclear medicine, Vol. 9 (No. 4), pp. 157-60, (1984).
20- Tomomitsu Higashi, Katuo Ito, Kaizo Shimura, Yukihiko Kinoshita, and Sakae Sakurai, "Clinical evaluation of 67Ga-citrate scanning in the oral region." Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Vol. 40 (No. 5), pp. 691-99, (1975).
21- Zeinab Bayat et al., "Preparation and validation of [67Ga] Ga-phytate kit and Monte Carlo dosimetry: An effort toward developing an impressive lymphoscintigraphy tracer." Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 331 (No. 2), pp. 691-700, (2022).
22- Meral T Ercan, Tülin Aras, Erkan Ünlenen, Mustafa Ünlü, Işil S Ünsal, and Zafer Hasçelik, "99mTc-citrate versus 67Ga-citrate for the scintigraphic visualization of inflammatory lesions." Nuclear medicine and biology, Vol. 20 (No. 7), pp. 881-87, (1993).
23- Irène Buvat, "Methodologies for quantitative SPECT." in Physics of PET and SPECT Imaging: CRC Press, (2017), pp. 217-32.
24- TH Farncombe, HC Gifford, MV Narayanan, PH Pretorius, EC Frey, and MA King, "Assessment of Scatter Compensation Strategies for 67 Ga SPECT Using Numerical Observers and Human LROC Studies." Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 45 (No. 5), pp. 802-12, (2004).
25- TH Farncombe et al., "An optimization of reconstruction parameters and investigation into the impact of photon scatter in /sup 67/Ga SPECT." IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. 49 (No. 5), pp. 2148-54, (2002).
26- SC Moore, MF Kijewski, and MF Fakhri, "Collimator optimization for detection and quantitation tasks: application to gallium-67 imaging." IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, Vol. 24 (No. 10), pp. 1347-56, (2005).
27- Mina Ouahman et al., "Collimator and Energy Window Evaluation in Ga-67 Imaging by Monte Carlo Simulation." Molecular imaging and radionuclide therapy, Vol. 29 (No. 3), p. 118, (2020).
28- Laura Demino, Paulo Ferreira, Francisco PM Oliveira, and Durval C Costa, "Comparison of the 90Y-labelled glass microspheres liver radioembolisation dosimetry with the estimated dosimetry obtained from pre-treatment 99mTc-MAA SPECT images reconstructed with and without attenuation correction." Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging & Visualization, Vol. 7 (No. 5-6), pp. 651-59, (2018).
29- Tobias Rydén, Martijn Van Essen, Ida Marin, Johanna Svensson, and Peter Bernhardt, "Deep-Learning Generation of Synthetic Intermediate Projections Improves 177Lu SPECT Images Reconstructed with Sparsely Acquired Projections." Journal of Nuclear Medicine, Vol. 62 (No. 4), pp. 528-35, (2021).
30- Youssef Bouzekraoui, Farida Bentayeb, Hicham Asmi, and Faustino Bonutti, "Energy window and contrast optimization for single-photon emission computed tomography bremsstrahlung imaging with yttrium-90." Indian journal of nuclear medicine: IJNM: the official journal of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, India, Vol. 34 (No. 2), p. 125, (2019).
31- Hicham Asmi, Farida Bentayeb, Youssef Bouzekraoui, Faustino Bonutti, and Sanae Douama, "Energy window and collimator optimization in lutetium-177 single-photon emission computed tomography imaging using Monte Carlo simulation." Indian journal of nuclear medicine: IJNM: the official journal of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, India, Vol. 35 (No. 1), p. 36, (2020).
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| Issue | Vol 11 No 1 (2024) | |
| Section | Original Article(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/fbt.v11i1.14516 | |
| Keywords | ||
| 67Ga-Citrate Attenuation Correction Iterative Reconstruction Quantitative Imaging Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography/Computed Tomography | ||
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How to Cite
1.
Rezaei S, Farzanehfar S, Badrzadeh L, Assadi F, Vahidfar N, Sheikhzadeh P. Impact of Attenuation Correction, Collimator, and Iterative Reconstruction Protocols on 67Ga SPECT/CT Quantification. Frontiers Biomed Technol. 2023;11(1):94-103.
