How much shorter is better? Investigating image acquisition time reduction on left ventricular phase analysis for cardiac dyssynchrony

Excerpt

Myocardial perfusion imaging is a widespread technique with proven added value for CAD diagnosis, prognostication, and therapeutic monitoring.1 In the last decade, there have been many improvements in gamma-camera hardware, software reconstructions algorithms including resolution recovery methods, and cardiac evaluation software.2,3 This has led to shortening of the acquisition time as compared to previous guidelines, going from 30 seconds down to 15 seconds per projection (the so-called “half-time” acquisition).4 Gating the acquisition with ECG has the ability to measure cardiac wall motion and thickening and left ventricular systolic and diastolic volumes, as well as ejection fraction (EF). The shortening of the acquisition time brings advantages in terms of images degradation due to patient movement, upwards heart creep in post-stress period, patients throughput, as well as in patients comfort at the expense of perfusion defects detectability due to increase in image noise.5 …