Scintigraphic instruments and techniques in nuclear medicine

The development of new radiopharmaceuticals, cyclotron-produced radionuclides and improvement of detector, scanner and gamma camera characteristics have enable a remarkable recent progress in scintigraphic techniques for organ visualization and functional studies. Using a variety of techniques, positron cameras, section scanners, gamma holography, tomographic imaging appear to be playing an increasing important role. Data processing techniques, for example image processing and three dimensional reconstruction have significantly increased their impact. The principal research work and advances in technique achieved up to 1972 are summarized and the subjects which have been further exploited are outlined. The main section comprises references and abstracts of articles from scientific journals and conference proceedings (191 articles and 221 papers mentioned) for the period 1972-1975 to illustrate advances in this domain: Excerpta Medica (Nuclear Medicine) Abstract Journals and Nuclear Science Abstracts (1972-1975) were used as abstracting publications. This survey is completed with an index of authors and subject-matters. Eleven thesis are mentionned in an appendix