Annals of nuclear medicine
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The severity of chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) is defined by the degree of flow limitation measured as forced expiratory volume in 1 s, which mainly reflects impairment of large and intermediate airways. However, COPD is primarily a small airways disease. Therefore, better diagnostic tools are needed. Ventilation-Perfusion (V/P) SPECT is a sensitive method to detect obstructive lung changes but criteria for staging airway obstruction are missing. ⋯ Functional imaging with V/P SPECT enables standardized grading of airway obstruction as well as reduced lung function, both of which correlate with GOLD stage. V/P SPECT shows that long-term smokers in most cases have signs of ventilatory impairment and airway obstruction not shown by spirometry.
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The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the point spread function (PSF) and time of flight (TOF) on PET/CT images of overweight patients in relation to the iteration number and the acquisition time. ⋯ The combination of the PSF and TOF correction improved the image quality of the LG phantom and overweight patients.