Software development for ACR-approved phantom-based nuclear medicine tomographic image quality control with cross-platform compatibility

Abstract

Quality control and quality assurance (QC/QA) have been two of the most important issues in modern nuclear medicine (NM) imaging for both clinical practices and academic research. Whereas quantitative QC analysis software is common to modern positron emission tomography (PET) scanners, the QC of gamma cameras and/or single-photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT) scanners has not been sufficiently addressed. Although a thorough standard operating process (SOP) for mechanical and software maintenance may help the QC/QA of a gamma camera and SPECT-computed tomography (CT), no previous study has addressed a unified platform or process to decipher or analyze SPECT phantom images acquired from various scanners thus far. In addition, a few approaches have established cross-platform software to enable the technologists and physicists to assess the variety of SPECT scanners from different manufacturers. To resolve these issues, we have developed Interactive Data Language (IDL)-based in-house software for crossplatform (in terms of not only operating systems (OS) but also manufacturers) analyses of the QC data on an ACR SPECT phantom, which is essential for assessing and assuring the tomographical image quality of SPECT. We applied our devised software to our routine quarterly QC of ACR SPECT phantom images acquired from a number of platforms (OS/manufacturers). Based on our experience, we suggest that our devised software can offer a unified platform that allows images acquired from various types of scanners to be analyzed with great precision and accuracy.