ABSTRACT
Since its introduction in the mid-1970s, SPECT imaging has evolved to be one of the most widely used advanced imaging techniques for clinical diagnosis and management (Kuhl et al. 1976; Budinger and Gullberg 1974; Keyes et al. 1977; Jaszczak et al. 1977). Continuing technological evolution over the years has often kept SPECT advancing in a piecewise and bottom-up manner. To avoid losing sight of the big picture and going astray, the developments of SPECT systems should also be viewed in a top-down perspective occasionally. This chapter describes the instrumentation aspects of SPECT systems from the top-down perspectives and reviews their evolution and trends of development.
