Evaluation of Simultaneous Dual-radioisotope SPECT Imaging Using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose and 99mTc-tetrofosmin

Use of a positron emission tomography (PET)/single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) system facilitates the simultaneous acquisition of images with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) and technetium (99mTc)-tetrofosmin. However, 18F has a short half-life, and 511 keV Compton-scattered photons are detected in the 99mTc energy window. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the consequences of these facts.
The crosstalk correction for images in the 99mTc energy window involved the dual energy window (DEW) subtraction method. In phantom studies, changes in the count of uniform parts in a phantom (due to attenuation from decay), signal detectability in the hot-rod part of the phantom, and the defect contrast ratio in a cardiac phantom were examined.
For 18F-FDG in the step-and-shoot mode, nearly a 9% difference was observed in the count of projection data between the start and end positions of acquisition in the uniform part of the phantom. Based on the findings, the detectability of 12 mm hot rods was relatively poor. In the continuous acquisition mode, the count difference was corrected, and detectability of thehot rods was improved. The crosstalk from 18F to the 99mTc energy window was approximately 13%. In the cardiac phantom, the defect contrast in 99mTc images from simultaneous dual-radionuclide acquisition was improved by approximately 9% after DEW correction; the contrast after correction was similar to acquisition with 99mTc alone.
Based on the findings, the continuous mode is useful for 18F-FDG acquisition, and DEW crosstalk correction is necessary for 99mTc-tetrofosmin imaging.