Development of High Performance Cardiac SPECT/CT Imaging

描述（由申请人提供）：目前，在美国，超过一半的临床核成像程序是心脏成像，几乎所有这些都是应激/休息心肌灌注SPECT成像。除了常规的心电图门控成像方案，许多研究者正在探索动态和呼吸门控SPECT评估心功能的应用。这些先进的成像技术要求比现有的SPECT系统提供更高的性能。我们的研究目标是通过开发一种高性能的SPECT系统来优化心脏成像，从而满足这一需求。多年来，我们的研究重点强调创新仪器的发展，以确保在前端获得的数据质量，然后是先进的软件处理技术，以提供高质量的层析成像图像。提出的新的心脏SPECT/CT混合平台的设计概念，称为MarCS，是从我们以前开发的脑SPECT系统演变而来的。MarCS通过高效和有效地检测所需光子实现高性能；这种性能将由一个综合和实用的透射成像方案补充。在同一系统上执行高质量发射和透射成像的能力依次促进了MarCS为临床操作提供高质量定量SPECT图像的效率，实用性和一致性，以及诊断的准确性。由于MarCS平台的可行性已经建立，现在是时候开发一个原型系统了。由于这个项目的巨大规模和复杂性，我们将原型开发分为两个3年阶段：设计阶段和工程阶段。这个申请是为设计阶段提供资金，这在研究的背景下实际上更重要，它将指导下一个工程阶段，以实现原型的全部潜力。我们对这些设计概念的首次实施的初步研究- marcs - 1系统-非常令人鼓舞；进一步的优化和实验研究是必要的之前，一个完整的实验室原型的建设。我们建议严格验证设计概念并优化MarCS的设计，以实现优化的性能，并计划下一阶段-原型的构建。该项目将扩大心脏SPECT成像的应用范围，并促进其作为x线CT和MR1的补充临床诊断工具的地位。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Currently, more than half of all clinical nuclear imaging procedures in the U.S. are cardiac imaging, and nearly all of these are stress/rest myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging. In addition to routine EKG-gated imaging protocols, many investigators are exploring the utility of dynamic and respiration-gated SPECT to assess cardiac function. These advanced imaging techniques demand higher performance than existing SPECT systems provide. The goal of our research addresses this demand by developing a high performance SPECT system optimized for cardiac imaging. Our research emphasis over the years stresses the development of innovative instrumentation that assures the quality of data acquired at the front-end followed by advanced software processing techniques to provide high-quality tomographic images. The design concept of the proposed new cardiac SPECT/CT hybrid platform, called MarCS, is evolved from our previously developed brain SPECT system. MarCS achieves high performance through efficient and effective detection of desirable photons; this performance will be complemented by an integrated and practical transmission imaging scheme. The ability to perform high-quality emission and transmission imaging on the same system sequentially facilitates MarCS to provide high-quality quantitative SPECT images with efficiency, practicality and consistency to clinical operations, and accuracy to diagnosis. Since the feasibilities of the MarCS platform have been established, it is time to develop a prototype system. Due to the huge magnitude and complexity of this project, we divide the prototype development into two 3-year phases: a design and an engineering phase. This application is for the funding of the design phase, which is actually more significant in the context of research and which will guide the next engineering phase to realize the full potential of the prototype. Our preliminary studies for the first implementation of these design concepts - MArCS-l system - are very encouraging; further optimization and experimental investigations are necessary prior to the construction of a full-scale laboratory prototype. We propose to verify the design concepts rigorously and optimize the design of MarCS, to achieve optimized performance, and a plan for the next phase - construction of a prototype. This project will expand the utility of cardiac SPECT imaging and promote its status as a complementary clinical diagnostic tool with x-ray CT and MR1.