Filter selection for 99mTc-Sestamibi myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging [Persian]

Myocardial perfusion SPECT imaging with Tc99m-sestamibi is the most accurate non-invasive means of detecting coronary artery disease and assessing the severity of perfusion abnormalities in the patients with coronary stenosis. Though simple and straight forward the results produced by the technique is very much affected by the details being used. One of the main problems with the test, which has created a lot of discrepancies, is the selection of proper filter and adjustment of filter parameters to individual cases. In this study we have analyzed and compared for widely used filters for myocardial Tc-99m sestamibi SPECT study i.e. Hanning, Butterworth, Metz and Wiener. The aim of the study was to find the most suitable filter for this type of study and to verify the theoretical peculiarity of the filters in practice. Patients with proven coronary artery abnormality were selected. We have investigated four conventional filters commonly used in nuclear medicine using quantitative and qualitative method. Filters were compared to each other and to the results of angiography. Our results show that the best filter in terms of contrast; smoothing and spatial resolution is the classical Metz filter with the FWHM of 4, order of 0.5. The best filter in the myocardial viability was Hanning filter with the cutoff of 0.5.