STACK SCANNING: SIMULTANEOUS MULTI-FILM PHOTO-RECORDING OF ISOTOPE SCANS

Stack scanning is a multi-film method for expanded information recording and display of nuclide concentrations. In this technique, maximized light emissions from a scanner penetrate, not one, but several films layered in the photo-cassette. Low and high counting rates are simultaneously recorded by the same transit of the detector over the patient. Thinned target margins are mapped, internal count rate defects are enhanced, and technical errors in making the scans are prevented. With a typical 3 film stack scan, we proved that the most heavily exposed film sheet (S-1) shows nuclide arrays with counting rates extending down to a few 100 per minute; that the second film sheet (S-2) equals conventionally-set single film scans; and that the third film (S-3) often simulates scans made with 70 to 8o per cent of the lower counting rates raised.

For these reasons, we think stack films resemble nuclide displays from computers, tape-recorded scan reviews, and manipulations of data with closed-circuit television. Stack films need no complicated processing after normal development. They stand as permanent, life-size records, and they provide the only simple recording mode for standard equipment that does not suppress, cut out, or otherwise degrade useful data. Phantom tests, paired scans in patients, and routine use of the technique in a university hospital support these impressions.

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