Quality control of Gamma Camera By Dr/ Ibrahim Elsayed Saad 242 NMT
WHAT IS QUALITY? The quality of a practice is to fulfill the expectations and demands from: Patient Clinicain Your self
Quality assurance and quality control The concept of quality in the term quality assurance expresses the closeness with which the outcome of a given procedure approaches some ideal, free from all errors and artifacts (Whole procedure). The term quality control is used in reference to the specific measures taken to ensure that one particular aspect of the procedure is satisfactory (Single step in the procedure).
NUCLEAR MEDICINE SERVICE facilities patient care waiting time staff reporting competence experience optimisation radiopharmaceuticals methods examination technique instrumentation etc etc Primary service Secondary service Nuclear medicine examination or treatment
QA-PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES * Improvement in the quality of the diagnostic information. * Use of minimum amount of radionuclide activity to ensure the production of the desired diagnostic information. * Effective use of available resources
QA Medical exposure Choice of examination Determination of technical parameters Optimization of administered activity Methods of reducing the absorbed dose Quality control of equipment and radiopharmaceutical Quality assurance of methods Safe routines to avoid misadministration
Gamma Camera Used to measure the spatial and temporal distribution of a radiopharmaceutical
Test Schedule for Gamma Camera System Test Frequency in routine testing Acceptance Referenc e once per Quarter Week Half year 1-Physical Inspection A 2-Test of Intrinsic Flood-field Uniformity 3- Test of Intrinsic Spatial Resolution 4- Test of Intrinsic Count-rate Performance 5- Test of Spatial Linearity and Spatial Resolution A R Q W A R H A R H A 6- Test of Basic Computer Timing A R H 7- Test of Computer Timing in Dynamic Acquisition R A R H 8- Test of camera Sensitivity A R W
SOURCES FOR QC OF GAMMA- CAMERAS <1 mm Point source Collimated line source Line source Flood source Tc99m, Co57, Ga67
Phantoms for QC of gamma-cameras Bar phantom Slit phantom Orthogonal hole phantom Total performance phantom
Phantoms for QC of gamma-cameras
Physical Inspection The Purpose of this test is to inspect a cameracomputer system for shipping damage and production flaws. Procedure: 1-Image Display Devices 2-Image Recording Devices 3-Electrical Connections, Fuses and Cables 4-Operation and Service Manuals 5-Check for controls that are difficult to operate or are noisy and switches that do not throw securely. Inspect keyboards for damage.
Special definitions for quality control System: a term used to refer to the performance of the camera detector, as it would be used in a clinical environment including components such as a collimator and supporting gantry. Energy window: A range of gamma and X-ray energies, which are to be accepted and processed. The window is expressed as a range of energies or as a percentage of expected peak energy. When expressed as percentage the peak energy must always be specified, and the window is always symmetrical about the peak energy value. Photopeak: the characteristic energy distribution resulting from the collection of total photon energy absorbed by the detector.
Differential uniformity: The amount of count density change per defined unit distance when the detector s incident gamma radiation is a homogenous flux over the field of measurement. Integral uniformity: A measure of the maximum count density variation over a defined large area of the scintillation detector for a uniform input gamma flux to the Useful Field of View of the camera. Pixel: a picture element used to store a value in a digital memory. It represents an area defined by dimensions in X and Y directions at a known position defined by X and Y coordinates.
Scatter: photons that have lost part of their energy due to interaction with a medium, such as water, plastic, or tissue. Sensitivity: The observed count rate per unit of radioactivity at a specified distance. Spectrum: a plot of the number of detected gamma rays versus the measured energy of the gamma rays.
Energy resolution: A term used to characterize the ability of a gamma camera to distinguish between photons of different energies Spatial resolution: A term that characterizes the scintillation camera s ability to accurately resolve spatially separated radioactive sources.
Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM): The measure of the spread of a point or line spread function measured between locations 50 %down on each side from the peak amplitude. Full Width at Tenth Maximum (FWTM): The measure of the spread of a point or line response function measured between locations 90 % down on each side from the peak amplitude.
Differential linearity: The amount of positional distortion or displacement over a limited distance Useful Field of View (UFOV): The area of the detector, which is used for imaging gamma rays and x- rays. It is defined by a dimensioned figure supplied by the manufacturer. Central field of view (CFOV): The area defined by scaling all linear dimensions of the useful field of view (UFOV) by a factor of 75%.
Intrinsic: A term used to describe performance characteristics of a scintillation camera that exclude external variables, which affect these specifications such as collimators or display devices. Extrinsic: A term that is used to describe the total system performance including photons attenuated throw passing into the collimator, so that it includes all external factors such as collimator.
EnergyWindow Peaking 15 % window 25 % window 35 % window
140 KeV 137 KeV Wrong setting of energy window
1) Test of Intrinsic Flood-field Uniformity The purpose of this test is to test the combined intrinsic response of a cameracomputer system to a spatially uniform flux of incident gamma radiation over the camera field-of-view. Materials used are: Point source consisting of 10-20 MBq (0.3-0.5 mci) Tc-99m, giving a count rate not greater than 30 000-50 000 c /s with a 20% PHA window. Source mounting for point source.
Procedure 1. Remove the collimator from the detector head. Align the head and the source mounting. 2. Mount the source in the source mounting with distance equal to 5 times the average detector diameter, which is (220 cm). 3. Centre a 20% PHA window on the Photopeak (Check of Energy Calibration of PHA). 4. Acquire an image on the cameras display device at a preset count of 15 x 10 6 using a 512X512 matrix. 6. Record the collection time for the camera. 7. Remove the source and mount the collimator.
Data Analysis: Determine the maximum (Max) and minimum (Min) counts in the pixels lying within the UFOV and the CFOV. The integral uniformity, IU, is then given by: IU = 100 * Max - Min Max + Min Determine for each row or column of pixels in the X and Y directions within the UFOV and the CFOV, the maximum count difference in any 6 contiguous pixels. Determine the highest value of this maximum count difference in the sets of rows and columns. The differential uniformity, DU, is then given by: DU =100* Hi ' Low Hi + Low
2) Test of Intrinsic Spatial Resolution The purpose of this test is to test the combined intrinsic spatial resolution of a camera- computer system in terms of the full width at half-maximum (FWHM) and full width at tenth-maximum (FWTM). Procedures: 1-The collimator is removed from the detector face. 2- Position the intrinsic-resolution phantom ( slit phantom) and then adjust the source on the source holder to be in front of the detector face with distance equal to 5 times the average detector diameter, which is (220 cm). 3-The acquisition parameters for this test is adjusted as follows: a)15000 K. counts. b)512x512x16 acquisition matrix. c)20 % PHA window on the photopeak which is 140 KeV for Tc-99m.
4-Acquire an image for the camera device at the preset count of 15 x 10 6 5-By using the software provided on the processing computer connected to the camera, by which we can draw a line on a single slit of the slits in the phantom image, this will give us a profile which indicate to the peak from which we can calculate the FWHM in Pixels. And then by knowing the matrix size used while acquiring the image we can calculate the FWHM in millimeters.
6-Then the estimation of the intrinsic spatial resolutions is done in terms of FWHM of the line spread function. counts Pixels
At acceptance testing, the calculated values of FWHM in the X and Y directions should be compared with the manufacturer's worst-case values. At routine testing, the calculated values should be compared with the reference values.
3) Test of Intrinsic Spatial Linearity The same procedures for testing the intrinsic resolution is prepared. The resulted peaks for the lines separating the lead sheets is plotted on a graph and then the spatial distortion (linearity) is measured.
Test of Intrinsic Spatial Linearity
Test of Intrinsic Spatial Linearity Count pixels
Then the calculation of the distance between each adjacent peaks is done, and calculating the difference between the maximum distance and the minimum distance this will indicate the shifting between the parallel slits, this is directly the spatial linearity.