Texture analysis of divers' brains using 99Tcm-HMPAO SPET.

Abstract

The potential use of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) single photon emission tomography (SPET) imaging with 99Tcm-hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime (HMPAO) in the management of divers who have undergone a form of decompression sickness (DCS) was investigated using texture analysis. We imaged 50 divers, 10 of whom had only experienced DCS which had been categorized as Type 1, 20 of whom had a history of DCS classified as Type 2 and 20 of whom had not suffered an episode of DCS. A number of divers who had experienced Type 2 DCS had also had incidents of Type 1. The reconstructed SPET images were pre-processed and analysed using a first-order texture analysis technique based on a grey level histogram. The results showed that there was a significant textural difference between the divers who had only suffered episodes of DCS Type 1 and the diving controls and a difference between the divers with a history of Type 2 and the diving controls. No differences were found between the two groups of divers who had a history of DCS. This result suggests that DCS produces a detectable change in 99Tcm-HMPAO SPET brain images. However, the segmentation between the groups investigated was not complete and so the usefulness of this approach appears limited in individual cases but may provide useful information about the effects of different diving practices.