Evaluation of general-purpose collimators against high-resolution collimators with resolution recovery with a view to reducing radiation dose in myocardial perfusion SPECT: A preliminary phantom study

There is a growing focus on reducing radiation dose to patients undergoing myocardial perfusion imaging. this preliminary phantom study aims to evaluate the use of general-purpose collimators with resolution recovery (rr) to allow a reduction in patient radiation dose. images of a cardiac torso phantom with inferior and anterior wall defects were acquired on a ge infinia and siemens symbia t6 using both high-resolution and general-purpose collimators. imaging time, a surrogate for administered activity, was reduced between 35% and 40% with general-purpose collimators to match the counts acquired with high-resolution collimators. images were reconstructed with rr with and without attenuation correction. two pixel sizes were also investigated. defect contrast was measured. defect contrast on general-purpose images was superior or comparable to the high-resolution collimators on both systems despite the reduced imaging time. infinia general-purpose images required a smaller pixel size to be used to maintain defect contrast, while symbia t6 general-purpose images did not require a change in pixel size to that used for standard myocardial perfusion spect. this study suggests that general-purpose collimators with rr offer a potential for substantial dose reductions while providing similar or better image quality to images acquired using high-resolution collimators.