Autospect

Standard 99mTc-sestamibi or tetrofosmin rest/stress protocols were employed as previously described with treadmill testing or dipyridamole infusion with low-level exercise[11 (link)]. Dual-detector scintillation cameras with low-energy high-resolution collimators (Vertex; Philips Medical Systems, Milpitas, CA) and gadolinium-153 line-source attenuation correction hardware and software (Vantage Pro; Philips Medical Systems, Milpitas, CA) were used to acquire MPI. Tomographic reconstruction was performed by AutoSPECT and Vantage Pro programs (Philips Medical Systems)[12 (link)]. Emission images were automatically corrected for non-uniformity, radioactive decay, center-of-rotation, and motion during acquisition. Filtered back-projection and Butterworth filters were applied to obtain the non-AC MPI with an order of 10 and cut-off of 0.50 for rest MPI, and an order of 5 and cut-off of 0.66 for stress MPI. The attenuation maps and the emission data were used to reconstruct the AC images with a maximum-likelihood expectation maximization algorithm incorporating scatter correction and depth-dependent resolution compensation.

Standard 99mTc-sestamibi or tetrofosmin rest/stress protocols were employed as previously described with treadmill testing or dipyridamole infusion with low-level exercise [13 (link)]. Adjunctive low level exercise was performed when feasible and not contraindicated (e.g., left bundle branch block). Dual-detector scintillation cameras with low-energy, high-resolution collimators (Vertex; Philips Medical Systems, Milpitas, CA) and gadolinium-153 line-source attenuation correction hardware and software (Vantage Pro; Philips Medical Systems, Milpitas, CA) were used to acquire MPI. Tomographic reconstruction was performed by AutoSPECT and Vantage Pro programs (Philips Medical Systems). Emission images were automatically corrected for non-uniformity, radioactive decay, center-of-rotation, and motion during acquisition. Filtered back-projection and Butterworth filters were applied to obtain the non-attenuation corrected MPI with an order of 10 and cut-off of 0.50 for rest MPI, and an order of 5 and cut-off of 0.66 for stress MPI. Non-attenuation correction images were used as it has previously been shown that the use of attenuation corrected images did not significantly improve the prognostic value of MPI [11 (link)].

Standard 99mTc-sestamibi or tetrofosmin rest/stress protocols were employed as previously described with treadmill testing or dipyridamole infusion with low-level exercise.^{10 (link),14 (link)} Adjunctive low-level exercise was performed when feasible and not contraindicated (e.g., left bundle branch block). Dual-detector scintillation cameras with low-energy, high-resolution collimators (Vertex; Philips Medical Systems, Milpitas, CA) were used to acquire MPI. Tomographic reconstruction was performed by AutoSPECT and Vantage Pro programs (Philips Medical Systems). Emission images were automatically corrected for non-uniformity, radioactive decay, center-of-rotation, and motion during acquisition. Filtered back-projection and Butterworth filters were applied to obtain the non-attenuation corrected MPI with an order of 10 and cut-off of 0.50 for rest MPI, and an order of 5 and cut-off of 0.66 for stress MPI. Non-attenuation correction images were used for the current analysis as we have previously reported that the use of attenuation did not significantly improve the prognostic performance of MPI.^{14 (link)}