The Evaluation of Clinical Usefulness on Application of Half-Time Acquisition Factor in Gated Cardiac Blood Pool Scan

게이트심장혈액풀 스캔에서 Half-Time 획득 인자 적용에 따른 임상적 유용성 평가

Purpose: The scan time reduction helps to yield more accurate results and induce the minimization of patient's motion. Also we can expect that satisfaction of examination will increase. Nowdays medical equipment companies have developed various programs to reduce scan time. We used Onco. Flash (Pixon method, SIEMENS) that is an image processing technique gated cardiac blood pool scan and going to evaluate its clinical usefullness. Materials and Method: We analyzed the 50 patients who were examined by gated blood pool scan in nuclear medicine department of Asan Mediacal Center from June $20^{th}$ 2008 to August $14^{th}$ 2008. We acquired the Full-time (6000 Kcounts) and Half-time (3000 Kcounts) LAO image in same position. And we acquired LVEF values ten times from Full-time, Half-time images acquired by the image processing technique and analyzed its mean and standard deviation values. To estimate LVEF in same conditions, we set automatic location of the LV ROI and background ROI based on same X and Y-axis. Also we performed blinding tests to physician. Results: After making a quantitative analysis of the 50 patients EF values, each mean${\pm}$standard deviation is shown at Full-time image $68.12{\pm}7.84%$, Half- time (acquired by imaging processing technique) $68.49{\pm}8.73%$. In the 95% confidence limit, there was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05). After blinding test with a physician for making a qualitative analysis, there was no difference between Full-time image and Half-time image acquired by the image processing technique for observing LV myocardial wall motion. Conclusion: Gated cardiac blood pool scan has been reported its relatively exact EF measured results than ultrasound or CT. But gated cardiac blood pool scan takes relatively longer time than other exams and now it needs to improve time competitive power. If we adapt Half-time technique to gated cardiac blood pool scintigraphy based on this study, we expect to reduce possible artifacts and improve accessibility as well as flexibility to exam. Also we expect patient's satisfaction.