Evaluation of arbitrary tomographic plane images of Tl-201 myocardial ECT

Two kinds of arbitrary tomographic plane images that actually sliced the heart parallel (RAO tomographic plane) and perpendicular to the long axis of the left ventricle were reconstructed from the data of continuous transaxial tomographic sections of Tl-201 ECT with a rotating gamma camera. The arbitrary tomographic plane images that sliced the heart perpendicular to the long axis of the left ventricle resembled to tomographic images by the seven-pinhole technique, but they showed higher detectability of hypoperfusion area by circumferential profile analysis than the seven-pinhole method. The RAO tomographic plane images were useful to compare with regional left ventricular wall motion in the same direction. In a clinical evaluation of 50 patients, the result of ROC analysis showed that arbitrary tomographic plane images were more useful to detect myocardial infarction than conventional transaxial, sagittal and frontal tomographic plane images. (author)