3D printed anthropomorphic left ventricular myocardial phantom for nuclear medicine imaging applications

Abstract

Background Anthropomorphic torso phantoms, including a cardiac insert, are frequently used to investigate the imaging performance of SPECT and PET systems. These phantom solutions are generally featuring a simple anatomical representation of the heart. 3D printing technology paves the way to create cardiac phantoms with more complex volume definition. This study aimed to describe how a fillable left ventricular myocardium (LVm) phantom can be manufactured using geometry extracted from a patient image. Methods The LVm of a healthy subject was segmented from 18F-FDG attenuation corrected PET image set. Two types of phantoms were created and 3D printed using polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) material: one representing the original healthy LVm, and the other mimicking myocardium with a perfusion defect. The accuracy of the LVm phantom production was investigated by high-resolution CT scanning of 3 identical replicas. 99mTc SPECT acquisitions using local cardiac protocol were performed, without additional scattering media (“in air” measurements) for both phantom types. Furthermore, the healthy LVm phantom was inserted in the commercially available DataSpectrum Anthropomorphic Torso Phantom (“in torso” measurement) and measured with hot background and hot liver insert. Results Phantoms were easy to fill without any air-bubbles or leakage, were found to be reproducible and fully compatible with the torso phantom. Seventeen segments polar map analysis of the "in air” measurements revealed that a significant deficit in the distribution appeared where it was expected. 59% of polar map segments had less than 5% deviation for the "in torso” and "in air” measurement comparison. Excluding the deficit area, neither comparison had more than a 12.4% deviation. All the three polar maps showed similar apex and apical region values for all configurations. Conclusions Fillable anthropomorphic 3D printed phantom of LVm can be produced with high precision and reproducibility. The 3D printed LVm phantoms were found to be suitable for SPECT image quality tests during different imaging scenarios. The flexibility of the 3D printing process presented in this study provides scalable and anthropomorphic image quality phantoms in nuclear cardiology imaging.

Deep learning-based left ventricular segmentation demonstrates improved performance on respiratory motion-resolved whole-heart reconstructions

“…Many cardiac pathologies including heart failure, valvular disease, and congenital abnormalities involve LV remodeling that changes the shape and function of the LV ( 1 – 3 ). 3D segmentation of LV volume has an important role as a clinical metric as well as in 3D printing to make image phantoms ( 4 ) and computational fluid dynamics simulations ( 5 ). Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is the current standard for assessing ventricular volume in both adults and pediatric patients; CMR provides more accurate and reproducible ventricular volume quantifications when echocardiography images are ambiguous ( 2 , 6 ).…”

Fabrication of 3D Printed Hollow Spheres for QC and Feasibility for Use With xSPECT Bone

“…Single compartment kidney phantoms have been fabricated for assessing accuracy of quantitation for dosimetry by Tran-Gia et al [2] addressing the lack of anatomical variety of commercially available kidney phantoms. Cardiac phantoms have been developed by many groups to address the costs and impracticalities of current commercially available phantoms [3] and to create myocardial left ventricle phantoms with a variety of defects to assess image quality for different pathology-mimicking scenarios [4]. A moving 3D printed liver phantom was designed to characterise the effect of liver motion and impact on defect detection in myocardial perfusion imaging at various liver-tomyocardial proximities [5].…”