Importance of Understanding and Analyzing Daily Quality Assurance Test of Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography Equipment in Minimizing the Downtime of Equipment in Remote Places

This article briefly describes the event of a defective detector block in a daily quality assurance scan/blank scan and insists on implementing guidelines to scan or not to scan in such a scenario. The nuclear medicine physicist should have a clear understanding of the blank scan graph, which shall help rectify the right cause of problem and give confidence to the physician in reporting the acquired study. A routine blank scan in positron emission tomography signifies various parameters of the crystal (coincidence count rate, single count rate, dead time, and coincidence time along with energy response) and in some respect is analogous to the daily uniformity flood image for gamma cameras, providing an overall assessment of detector response. We encountered a bad detector block in our routine quality assurance scan/blank scan and analyzed the root cause behind such an error which was finally restored to normalcy by replacing the defected part with a new one and an error-free blank scan was established. The analysis was carried out by performing various possible checks and discussing the issue with service engineer to help identify the defects much before service engineer actually arrived in our department. This allowed us to take the correct decision and enabled us to get the scanner repaired faster. Hence, a good understanding of the daily quality control test and proper analysis of the same may result in swift decision-making and faster repair of equipment leading to minimal disruption in the clinical workflow as well as avoidance of suboptimal scanning leading to the wrong diagnosis.