Open AccessSoft Tissue Attenuation Patterns Associated with Supine Acquisition SPECT Myocardial Perfusion Imaging: A Descriptive Study
Author(s) -
Rami Doukky,
Mouyyad Rahaby,
Tareq Alyousef,
Raj Vashistha,
Dave Chawla,
Amit P. Amin
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the open cardiovascular medicine journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.302
H-Index - 25
ISSN - 1874-1924
DOI - 10.2174/1874192401206010033
Subject(s) - supine position , medicine , attenuation , correction for attenuation , myocardial perfusion imaging , perfusion , nuclear medicine , soft tissue , radiology , positron emission tomography , physics , optics
Purpose: Soft-tissue attenuation patterns in SPECT-myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) of supine acquisition systems are well recognized. Their prevalence and interaction with body-habitus and gender are ill-defined, which we sought to describe in this study. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we described the prevalence of soft-tissue attenuation patterns in normal SPECT-MPI studies acquired with a supine patient-position SPECT system. Results: In 263 normal, clinically-indicated, supine-acquisition SPECT-MPIs the attenuation patterns observed were: anterior (35.4%), inferior (41.8%) and lateral (13.3%). Anterior attenuation was more prevalent among women (50.7% vs. 15.7%, P<0.001) and was associated with chest circumference among men. Conversely, inferior attenuation was more prevalent among men (78.3% vs. 13.5%, P<0.001) and was not affected by body-habitus. Lateral attenuation was more common among women (19.6% vs. 5.2%, p=0.001) and was associated with obesity (p=0.015). Conclusions: Soft-tissue attenuation artifacts are common in supine-acquisition SPECT-MPI. The recognition of their prevalence and association with body-habitus and gender is critical for the accurate interpretation of SPECT-MPI.