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The Bifocal Diverging Collimator: A Means of Simultaneous Biplane Imaging of the Heart During Equilibrium Radionuclide Ventriculography

Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Correspondence: For reprints contact: H. William Strauss, Div. of Nuclear Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114.

ABSTRACT

We have constructed a bifocal diverging collimator (BDC), capable of simultaneously recording two views of the heart 50° apart on each half of a standard imaging field. In this study, simultaneous two-view blood-pool scans using the BDC were compared with the same two separate views obtained using an all-purpose parallel-hole collimator (PHC), assessing left-ventricular ejection fraction and regional wall motion in 20 patients undergoing contrast left ventriculography (CV). Ejection fraction by BDC correlated closely with PHC (r = 0.94) and with CV (r = 0.88). Regional wall motion was scored qualitatively on a five-point scale from 3 (normal) to –1 (dyskinesis) with an 88% agreement between BDC and PHC for segment scores. The percentages for agreement between BDC and CV, and between PHC and CV, were identical, 79%. A single blood-pool scan acquisition using a new BDC provides information about global and regional left-ventricular function in two planes, comparable with that of a PHC.