Description:

Introduces the use of computers in nuclear medicine, emphasizing analysis of static, dynamic, and tomographic images. Prerequisite: Acceptance into program.

Outcomes:

After completing this class, students should be able to:

Learning Objectives: 1. Explain the basic structure of a computer, including the essential components and their interactions. 2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various computer storage devices, especially those commonly used in nuclear medicine. 3. Describe the ways in which computers can be networked together, the benefits of such networking, and the basic workings of the largest network, the Internet. 4. Define PACS, RIS, and accession number, and discuss how these are used in nuclear medicine practice. 5. Describe how a nuclear medicine image is stored in a computer, including the concepts of pixels, counts/pixel, and analog to digital conversion. 6. Describe and discuss advantages and disadvantages of each of the following types of image acquisition methods: frame mode, byte mode, dynamic frame mode, multiple gated mode, and list mode. 7. State the purpose of a buffer in nuclear medicine image acquisition. 8. Describe five image enhancement methods used in nuclear medicine, including their methodology and advantages/disadvantages. 9. Discuss the use of regions of interest in the quantification of both static and dynamic images. 10. Describe how time-activity curves may be generated and manipulated. 11. Explain the generation and usefulness of the left ventricular ejection fraction, the volume curve, first and second derivative curves, phase analysis, and amplitude analysis in gated cardiac studies. 12. Discuss the acquisition and data processing of first pass studies, including both ventricular function studies and intracardiac shunt studies. 13. Explain how a series of nuclear medicine images can be reconstructed into a 3-dimensional image, and describe both filtered backprojection and iterative reconstruction methods. 14. State the purpose of filtering in SPECT imaging, and describe the different filter types commonly applied to SPECT images. 15. Discuss the application of quantitative programs to SPECT studies, particularly for the heart.