ABSTRACT
Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and microSPECT are valuable tools for molecular imaging in cardiovascular applications. This chapter summarizes the approaches used at Center for Gamma-ray Imaging and other laboratories, describes several representative small-animal SPECT systems, and demonstrates their applicability to cardiovascular molecular imaging. The performance of the ideal observer is invariant to the algorithm, virtually by definition, unless the algorithm removes information. Performance of a human observer is influenced by the algorithm, which serves to match the raw data to the characteristics of the human visual and cognitive system, but the effect is usually small. Temporal resolution is needed for many clinical imaging applications, but none more so than cardiac imaging. Performance on almost any clinical or biomedical task is improved by higher spatial resolution. The ideal heart imager would have a frame time short compared to the duration of a cardiac cycle and provide a snapshot three-dimensional image for each frame.
