PERTINENT QC TESTS FOR GAMMA CAMERA PERFORMANCE IN A BUSY NUCLEAR MEDICINE DEPARTMENT: AN AUDIT

Abstract

Background: In nuclear medicine imaging comprehensive quality controls procedures are used to ensure the accuracy and reproducibility gamma camera. However, these are time consuming. In practice, however, less time-consuming and less rigorous procedures often suffice for day-to-day QC. We are presenting an audit of QC of dual head gamma camera of aNuclear Medicine Department of a tertiary care hospital in Karachi.

Material and Method: This audit was performed at Nuclear Medicine Department of Liaquat National Hospital (LNH) Karachi, Pakistan from 1st October 2016 till 31 Dec 2015. We perform background count, energy peaking, % energy resolution (full width half maximum; FWHM), % central and uniform field of view (% CFOV and % UFOV), total counts and count rate.

Results: Mean background counts (Kcnts) detected by Detector-1 was 0.24 and for Detector-2 was 0.22 which were well within NEMA benchmark but values of detectors were significantly different.  Mean % energy resolution (%FWHM) for Detector-1 was 09.89 and for Detector-2 was 10.364 (within NEMA standards) but significantly difference between 02 detectors. Mean count rate (Kcts/s) detected by Detector-1 was 14.27 and for Detector-2 was 15.91 (well within NEMA benchmark) but significant difference between counts rate of 02 detectors was found.

Conclusion: We conclude that less time consuming and convenient procedures like background count, energy resolution and mean count rate measurement are sensitive tests for daily QC of a busy nuclear medicine department.

Key Words: Gamma camera; Quality control; uniformity; energy resolution; Electronic drift