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Practicality of NEMA Performance Specification Measurements for User-Based Acceptance Testing and Routine Quality Assurance

University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, Colorado

Correspondence: For reprints contact: Ulrich Raff, PhD, Radiological Sciences, Div. of Nucl. Med., University of Colorado Health Sci. Center, Denver, CO 80262.

ABSTRACT

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) performance specifications provide the only standardized and traceable measurements of scintillation-camera performance that are widely accepted by manufacturers. The NEMA publication describing the performance specifications suggests that elaborate equipment beyond a standard imaging computer is required for the measurements. For this reason the tests are currently unsuitable for both user-based acceptance testing and dally quality assurance. We have implemented five of the eight NEMA performance measurements as routine quality-assurance procedures on our computerized scintillation cameras. In addition, we have shown that seven of the eight NEMA measurements can be performed in a manner traceable to NEMA, with energy resolution as the single exception. With a standard imaging computer, NEMA phantom, and minor modification to NEMA collection and analysis constraints, we have analyzed images for intrinsic uniformity, resolution, linearity, and multiple-window spatial registration as well as for system spatial resolution both with and without scatter.