Application of the computer to rapid dynamic studies.

Current trends in nuclear medicine to some degree, at least, reflect the level of sophistication available in the instrumentation. A technologically oriented speciality such as this might be expected to shift emphasis from time to time as stepwise advances are made in instrumentation. In its infancy, nuclear medicine concentrated on studies that could be accomplished with a single-probe system. The introduction of rectilinear scanners made imaging practical and of primary concern. Anger's gamma camera made combined static and dynamic studies possible using a single instrument--a decided advantage over previous methodology. The development of digital acquisition, processing, and display systems has had a profound effect on the recently increased emphasis on rapid dynamic studies. Computers are currently being applied to a broad range of clinical problems. Data preparation routines such as uniformity correction and data bounding often are used preliminary to more rigorous mathematical treatment. The development of reasonably low-cost, TV-type displays has greatly increased the quality of the computer display of the radionuclide imaging process.

Cinematic display of regional function in nuclear imaging.

A significant improvement in cardiovascular nuclear medicine has resulted from imaging the beating ventricles by motion-picture display of the intraventricular distribution of 99mTc albumin during 16 phases of the cardiac cycle. We have now begun to make "fast-motion" pictures of other body functions, including the cerebral circulation, pulmonary ventilation, biliary excretion, and renal blood flow. Data obtained over minutes, hours or days are compressed into 16 frames per second. These "compressed-time" images improve our perception of regional dysfunction, and the degree of certainly of our diagnoses. They do so by eliminating the blurring inevitably produced in the usual static images of moving structures, such as the heart, and by revealing small changes in regional function.