James A. Patton

Essentials and guidelines for clinical medical physics residency training programs: executive summary of AAPM Report Number 249

There is a clear need for established standards for medical physics residency training. The complexity of techniques in imaging, nuclear medicine, and radiation oncology continues to increase with each passing year. It is therefore imperative that training requirements and competencies are routinely reviewed and updated to reflect the changing environment in hospitals and clinics across the country. In 2010, the AAPM Work Group on Periodic Review of Medical Physics Residency Training was formed and charged with updating AAPM Report Number 90. This work group includes AAPM members with extensive experience in clinical, professional, and educational aspects of medical physics. The resulting report, AAPM Report Number 249, concentrates on the clinical and professional knowledge needed to function independently as a practicing medical physicist in the areas of radiation oncology, imaging, and nuclear medicine, and constitutes a revision to AAPM Report Number 90. This manuscript presents an executive summary of AAPM Report Number 249. PACS number: 87.10.‐e

QUALITY ASSURANCE IN MEDICAL IMAGING

The philosophy and general test methods that can be used on a routine basis to assure the quality of medical imaging systems are summarized in this article. Quality assurance must be observed throughout the entire imaging process from the initial order for a particular procedure to the generation, interpretation, and reporting of results. Key areas of concern include the optimization of the decision process (selection of the proper imaging procedure or sequence of procedures); the utilization of contrast agents, pharmaceuticals (including radiopharmaceuticals), and pharmacologically enhanced imaging procedures; the biodistribution and dosimetry; and the possible side effects of external agents.

CAMAC Applications in Nuclear Medicine at Vanderbilt: Present Status and Future Plans

CAMAC has been used for data acquisition and control of nuclear measurement systems in the Vanderbilt University Nuclear Medicine Laboratory for approximately two years. The implementation of the CAMAC crate controller used with a PDP/9 computer is described. Data are acquired from three types of devices. These include a stationary multi-probe system, a computer driven scanner and a dual probe scanner not under computer control. Future extensions of our system are discussed, including the collection of data from higher data rate instruments (Anger-type scintillation camera) as well as computer networking. The CAMAC system required a higher initial dollar investment when compared to a single dedicated scanner interface. However, it provided a much more versatile and more easily expanded system. When a second device is added, we found that the use of CAMAC can be defended successfully on a cost basis alone. The CAMAC standard allows the replication of systems by laboratories without the large investments in time and money usually needed to interface specialized measurement systems to computers. The modularity permits orderly growth of systems and protects against obsolescence. Almost any standard would be better than no standard, and we plan to use CAMAC for all applications where data-transmission-rate requirements permit. We hope that users in the nonnuclear field will come to utilize CAMAC in their measurement and data reduction systems where similar benefits should be obtained.

Three Dimensional (3-D) Reconstruction With Cone Beam Geometry Applied To Nuclear Medicine Imaging

A convolution-backprojection algorithm for fully 3-D reconstruction from cone beam projections was developed and implemented on an ADAC 3300 nuclear medicine computer system interfaced to a rotating scintillation camera with a pinhole collimator. As an approxima-tion, a space-invariant filter was applied to each projection independently before back-projection. The resolution of the system was found to be 7.8 mm at the center of field of view and 10.5 mm in the periphery, as opposed to 18 mm for a parallel hole, all purpose collimator. Results with phantom studies demonstrated that the technique provided images with improved spatial resolution.

Detection Systems for XRF Studies of the Thyroid

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) applications require detectors with ultra-high energy resolution. The primary detectors fulfilling this requirement that are currently available are semiconductor radiation detectors. These devices are often referred to as solid state detectors because their origin lies in the development of materials for transistor technology. They are the detectors of choice for virtually all work in nuclear spectroscopy.