Controlled thoracic motions of an anthropomorphic phantom for myocardial perfusion imaging

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop controlled thoracic motions on a cardiac phantom and a breathing phantom, which both are inserted within an anthropomorphic thorax phantom. The cardiac phantom consists of a left ventricle and the breathing phantom of inflatable lungs. The diastole and systole of the left ventricle follows the Wigger diagram while the inflatable lungs follow a sinusoidal exponential pattern. An ECG can gate both the beating left ventricle and the SPECT imaging modality. In addition, the ECG beating left ventricle follows the inferior portion of the inflatable lungs in the cranio-caudal direction at the level of the diaphragm. The lungs and the left ventricle are able to simulate normal and deep breathing conditions. A Programmable Logic Controller precisely controls these motions in time intervals of 10 ms. All motions can be operated simultaneously or independently to each other. A number of motion limitations of other physical phantoms have been overcome. This phantom assembly with variable cardiac defects can be utilized to optimize myocardial perfusion imaging.