| For clinical applications, full ring PET scanners are the established standard technology. Evaluation of modified PET scanning devices is strongly impaired by the demand for adequate accuracy studies. Since it has taken full ring PET at least a decade to produce data of appropriate level of evidence, it is not surprising that e.g. the role of dual-head coincidence gamma cameras is yet unsolved. With gamma cameras, the key issue is the lower sensitivity vs. full ring PET. The clinical role of such devices is likely to be one of triage for full ring PET. Therefore, head-to-head studies comparing the two devices in the same patient using full ring PET as the reference technique is a simple and straightforward study design. This project aims to show the utility of this approach in evaluating a prototype LSO-NaI dual head gamma camera that can be used for positron emitters as well as conventional radio-isotopes. A pilot study confirmed the feasibility, and this is followed by studies in patients with coin lesions and non-small cell lung cancer (aiming at the mediastinum). The second aim is to compare the relative performance of ring scanners and gamma cameras currently in use in the Netherlands. In vivo head-to-head comparison is not feasible, so that in vitro data obtained in an anthropomorphic phantom will be used. |
