Les nouvelles gamma caméras en cardiologie nucléaire : D-Spect

Over the past few years, advances in nuclear medicine aimed at decreasing both the duration and dosimetry of exams, without decreasing image quality. In this setting, Spectrum Dynamics (D-Spect) is a new generation gamma camera dedicated to cardiac scintigraphy. Its technology includes solid-state detectors based on pixelated semiconductors, region-centric (cardiac area) scanning, high-sensitivity collimators and resolution recovery. An additional particularity is the patient position during scanning. Phantom studies showed an improvement of sensitivity compared to conventional cameras, at the price of a loss in geometric resolution, which is compensated by resolution recovery. Semiconductors detectors provide a better energy resolution than conventional detectors suited to double isotope acquisitions, and a high count rate allowing dynamic acquisitions. Only few clinical studies are available so far, they suggest performances similar to that of conventional cameras obtained with acquisitions duration reduced to few minutes. The next step is to establish a trade-off between acquisition duration and dosimetry reduction.