Technologist Training Considerations for Hybrid Cardiac SPECT/CT and PET/CT
| Technical aspects: hands-on training for cardiac CT and MPI | Education: didactic learning |
| Scan patient from console room and communicate with patient using intercom in scanner | Cardiovascular anatomy and physiology |
| Learn acquisition and processing protocols for attenuation correction, coronary artery calcium scoring, and coronary CTA | Basics of pharmacology |
| Understand concepts of prospective ECG-triggered axial or helical scans vs. retrospective ECG-gated coronary CTA | Radiation safety |
| Learn operation of power injector and remote operation of dual-chamber contrast and saline injector system for coronary CTA studies | |
| Understand interference from metallic objects and CT-based attenuation correction algorithms | |
| Learn to minimize radiation dose from CT scans | |
| Recognize that CTAC for MPI is of low dose without need to increase dose on basis of body mass index | |
| Learn to prepare, position, perform, and reconstruct MPI on hybrid scanners (SPECT/CT and PET/CT) | |
| Learn to register MPI and CTAC images |
CTA = CT angiogram; MPI = myocardial perfusion imaging; CTAC = CT for attenuation correction.