Towards Quantification of Functional Breast Images Using Dedicated SPECT With Non-Traditional Acquisition Trajectories

Quantification of radiotracer uptake in breast lesions can provide valuable information to physicians in deciding patient care or determining treatment efficacy. Physical processes (e.g., scatter, attenuation), detector/collimator characteristics, sampling and acquisition trajectories, and reconstruction artifacts contribute to an incorrect measurement of absolute tracer activity and distribution. For these experiments, a cylinder with three syringes of varying radioactivity concentration, and a fillable 800 mL breast with two lesion phantoms containing aqueous ^99mTc pertechnetate were imaged using the SPECT sub-system of the dual-modality SPECT-CT dedicated breast scanner. SPECT images were collected using a compact CZT camera with various 3D acquisitions including vertical axis of rotation, 30° tilted, and complex sinusoidal trajectories. Different energy windows around the photopeak were quantitatively compared, along with appropriate scatter energy windows, to determine the best quantification accuracy after attenuation and dual-window scatter correction. Measured activity concentrations in the reconstructed images for syringes with greater than 10 μCi/mL corresponded to within 10% of the actual dose calibrator measured activity concentration for ±4% and ±8% photopeak energy windows. The same energy windows yielded lesion quantification results within 10% in the breast phantom as well. Results for the more complete complex sinsusoidal trajectory are similar to the simple vertical axis acquisition, and additionally allows both anterior chest wall sampling, no image distortion, and reasonably accurate quantification.