A gamma camera, also called a scintillation camera or Anger camera,Its Speciality is a device used to image gamma radiation emitting radioisotopes, a technique known as scintigraphy. The applications of scintigraphy include early drug development and nuclear medical imaging to view and analyse images of the human body or the distribution of medically injected, inhaled, or ingested radionuclides emitting gamma rays.
Imaging techniques using gamma cameras
Scintigraphy ("scint") is the use of gamma cameras to capture emitted radiation from internal radioisotopes to create two-dimensional images.
SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging, as used in nuclear cardiac stress testing, is performed using gamma cameras. Usually one, two or three detectors or heads, are slowly rotated around the patient's torso.
Multi-headed gamma cameras can also be used for Positron emission tomography scanning, provided that their hardware and software can be configured to detect "coincidences" (near simultaneous events on 2 different heads). Gamma camera PET is markedly inferior to PET imaging with a purpose designed PET scanner, as the scintillator crystal has poor sensitivity for the high-energy annihilation photons, and the detector area is significantly smaller. However, given the low cost of a gamma camera and its additional flexibility compared to a dedicated PET scanner, this technique is useful where the expense and resource implications of a PET scanner cannot be justified.
