Utility of SPECT in gallium scintigraphy

Whole-body gallium planar scintigraphy is a mainstay for the detection of tumors and inflammatory lesions. Recently, gallium SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) has become more common in the clinical setting. This diagnostic modality is widely employed in our hospital, and lesions are actually detected by SPECT in some cases. Although the contrast of SPECT images is better than that of planar images, spatial resolution is limited by the limited matrix size. Thus, the overall diagnostic utility of SPECT remains to be confirmed. The usefulness of SPECT for the detection of gallium-accumulated lesions was evaluated in a phantom. In this study, we showed that SPECT is able to detect more smaller and lower gallium accumulations than planar imaging. Thus, SPECT imaging is useful in gallium scintigraphy.