INTRAVENOUS RADIOISOTOPE ANGIOGRAPHY WITH COMPUTER PROCESSING OF DATA

Four studies are considered to illustrate a technique for intravenous radioisotope angiographic evaluation of patients with cardiac disorders. Although the various pictorial presentations including cinefilm have proven valuable in these studies, there has been the addition of computer processing of data, providing a quantitative approach to be made for better evaluation of the clinical status of patients with cardiac problems.

Despite its limitations, this technique for processing of data obtained with a scintillation camera has proven useful. The major limitation is the inherent dead time during which the data in memory are being read onto the magnetic tape (approximately 0.2 seconds). This, together with the data collection time of 0.6 seconds means that data points are obtained at 0.8 second intervals.

For the cases presented here, this does not represent a serious problem in interpretation of results. However, for optimal evaluation of cardiac shunts and incompetent cardiac valves, shorter time intervals for data transfer are needed in order to relate data points to cardiac systole and diastole. At present we are considering other techniques for data acquisition which will permit this to be done.

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