Effect of data conserving respiratory motion compensation on left ventricular functional parameters assessed in gated myocardial perfusion SPECT

Background Respiratory motion compromises image quality in myocardial perfusion (MP) single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging and may affect analysis of left ventricular (LV) functional parameters, including phase analysis-quantified mechanical dyssynchrony parameters. In this paper, we investigate the performance of two algorithms, respiratory blur modeling (RBM) and joint motion-compensated (JMC) ordered-subsets expectation maximization (OSEM), and the effects of motion compensation on cardiac-gated MP-SPECT studies. Methods Image acquisitions were carried out with a dual-detector SPECT/CT system in list-mode format. A cardiac phantom was imaged as stationary and under respiratory motion. The images were reconstructed with OSEM, RBM-OSEM, and JMC-OSEM algorithms, and compared in terms of mean squared error (MSE). Subsequently, MP-SPECT data of 19 patients were binned into dual-gated (respiratory and cardiac gating) projection images. The images of the patients were analyzed with Quantitative Gated SPECT (QGS) 2012 program (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, USA). The parameters of interest were LV volumes, ejection fraction, wall motion, wall thickening, phase analysis, and perfusion parameters. Results In phantom experiment, compared to the stationary OSEM reconstruction, the MSE values for OSEM, RBM-OSEM, and JMC-OSEM were 8.5406·10 −5 ,2.7190·10 −5 , and 2.0795·10 −5 , respectively. In the analysis of LV function, use of JMC had a small but statistically significant ( p < 0.05) effect on several parameters: it increased LV volumes and standard deviation of phase angle histogram, and it decreased ejection fraction, global wall motion, and lateral, septal, and apical perfusion. Conclusions Compared to standard OSEM algorithm, RBM-OSEM and JMC-OSEM both improve image quality under motion. Motion compensation has a minor effect on LV functional parameters.