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The Current Status of SPECT or SPECT/CT in South Korea

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Abstract

The first step to nuclear medicine in Korea started with introduction of the gamma camera in 1969. Although planar images with the gamma camera give important functional information, they have the limitations that result from 2-dimensional images. Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) due to its 3-dimensional image acquisition is superior to earlier planar gamma imaging in image resolution and diagnostic accuracy. As demand for a hybrid functional and anatomical imaging device has increased, integrated SPECT/CT systems have been used. In Korea, SPECT/CT was for the first time installed in 2003. SPECT/CT can eliminate many possible pitfalls on SPECT-alone images, making better attenuation correction and thereby improving image quality. Therefore, SPECT/CT is clinically preferred in many hospitals in various aspects. More recently, additional SPECT/CT images taken from the region with equivocal uptake on planar images have been helpful in making precise interpretation as part of their clinical workup in postoperative thyroid cancer patients. SPECT and SPECT/CT have various advantages, but its clinical application has gradually decreased in recent few years. While some researchers investigated the myocardial blood flow with cardiac PET using F-18 FDG or N-13 ammonia, myocardial perfusion SPECT is, at present, the radionuclide imaging study of choice for the risk stratification and guiding therapy in the coronary artery disease patients in Korea. New diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals for AD have received increasing attention; nevertheless, brain SPECT will remain the most reliable modality evaluating cerebral perfusion.

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Acknowledgments

The study was supported by a grant of Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Republic of Korea (NRF-2015M3C7A1064832). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Radiology, Incheon Saint Mary’s Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea, #56 Dongsuro, Bupyeong-gu, Incheon, 403-720, South Korea

      Ikdong Yoo, Eun Kyoung Choi & Yong-An Chung

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    1. Ikdong Yoo
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    2. Eun Kyoung Choi
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    3. Yong-An Chung
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    Correspondence to Yong-An Chung.

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    Ikdong Yoo, Eun Kyoung Choi and Yong-An Chung declare that they have no conflict of interest.

    Ethical Statement

    The study was approved by an institutional review board or equivalent and has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. The institutional review board waived the need to obtain informed consent.

    The manuscript has not been published before or is not under consideration for publication anywhere else and has been approved by all co-authors.

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    Ikdong Yoo and Eun Kyoung Choi contributed equally to this work.

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    Yoo, I., Choi, E.K. & Chung, YA. The Current Status of SPECT or SPECT/CT in South Korea. Nucl Med Mol Imaging 51, 101–105 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-016-0417-x

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13139-016-0417-x

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