Instrumentation and data processing in cardiovascular nuclear medicine: evaluation of ventricular function.

Cardiovascular nuclear medicine encompasses a variety of clinical procedures. Some of these procedures place demands on the imaging and data processing equipment that far exceeds those associated with other nuclear medicine procedures. This paper is devoted to an evaluation of the imaging and data processing requirements for two of the more demanding studies in cardiovascular nuclear medicine--first transit and gated equilibrium measurement of ventricular function. Imaging instrumentation and collimation, computer system hardware, and computer acquisition and analysis software are each treated as they apply to these procedures.