News

Dr. Dustin Osborne Joins International Preclinical SPECT Systems Committee

Dustin Osborne, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiology, has joined an international committee with National Electrical Manufacturer's Association (NEMA) that spans academia and industry to define standardized performance specifications for preclinical SPECT systems. NEMA is an entity that works to create standards that define products, processes or procedures. These may cover topics such as construction, tolerances, or performance.

The NEMA committee for preclinical SPECT is charged with defining the standards that are used in testing the performance of preclinical SPECT imaging equipment to determine the performance of a given system or make comparisons between imaging systems from different vendors. This work includes determination of what tests are important to both test the limits of the system for vendor comparisons as well as provide meaningful results that can be useful in assessing the routine operation of the system.

SPECT stands for Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography. It is a tomographic imaging modality, much like PET, in that it measures the distribution of radioactive compounds injected into a subject. The injected compound is usually designed to target a specific region or disease. A SPECT scan is performed by having one or more detectors rotate about the subject collecting data (called projections) at specified intervals during the rotation.  These projection images can then be reconstructed into 3D image data.

The preclinical SPECT committee consists of international members from institutions including:

Industry
Bioscan, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Central Institute for Electronics, Juelich, Germany
Gamma Medica, Inc., Northridge, California
Mediso, Ltd., Budapest, Hungary
MILabs BV, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., Knoxville, Tennessee

Academia
Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
King's College London, London, Great Britain
Radbound University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, Knoxville, Tennessee

February 11, 2013