The cardiofocal collimator: a variable-focus collimator for cardiac SPECT

Investigators in nuclear medicine have long been in search of a practical method to increase the number of detected events in cardiac SPECT. A clinically practical method requires a simple data acquisition protocol, clinically acceptable reconstruction times, artifact levels near or below visual threshold, and the use of currently available cameras and computers. Towards this end, we have developed the Cardiofocal collimator, a variable-focus collimator for cardiac SPECT that increases the number of detected events from the heart by more than a factor of two compared to that of a parallel-hole collimator with equivalent resolution. In both the transverse and axial dimensions, the focusing is strongest at the centre of the collimator, and gradually relaxes to nearly parallel-hole collimation at the edge of the collimator. The variable-focus concept provides an increase in the number of counts from organs imaged near the centre of the collimator, where the heart will spend most of the time during a cardiac SPECT study, while adequately sampling enough of the background activity distribution to prevent truncation artifacts in the reconstructed images. Images are reconstructed in clinically acceptable times using a filtered backprojection reconstruction algorithm. The algorithm supports both full-scan (360 degrees) and short-scan (180 degrees plus the fan angle) acquisitions. The results of simulations and phantom studies are included to demonstrate the performance of the Cardiofocal collimator.