Increasing awareness of a quality control problem in aging gamma cameras.

Increasing awareness of a quality control problem in aging gamma cameras.
J Nucl Med Technol. 2019 Apr 24;:
Authors: Frye SA, Frye RJ, Sterkel B, Muzaffar R, Osman MM
Abstract
Quality control (QC) in a nuclear medicine department plays an important role in providing quality care for patients. Closely monitoring the uniformity values on extrinsic QC can give insight into problems outside typical equipment issues. This facility noticed increasing uniformity values along with a photopenic image artifact. The detector required photo-coupling gel replacement a full rebuild by service engineers. This process took time for rebuild and time for the gel to set. Another adjustment of the voltage to the photomultiplier tubes (PMT) was required due to photocathode excitation in every cathode in every PMT in that detector. After the detector was rebuilt, the voltage was re-tuned with the field service engineers' knowledge that the PMTs would need to be re-tuned due to this excitation. Communication and understanding of equipment problems in aging gamma cameras can lead to proper equipment use and better quality in nuclear medicine departments.
PMID: 31019040 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology - April 26, 2019 Category: Nuclear Medicine Tags: J Nucl Med Technol Source Type: research