Design and construction of a quality control phantom for SPECT and PET imaging

In this article, the authors present a method for quickly and easily constructing test phantoms for PET and SPECT quality assurance. As a demonstration, they constructed a complex prototype test phantom, showing the strengths of the construction method. Images taken using a PET/CT and a SPECT scanner are presented, along with a qualitative evaluation of PET/CT using the test phantom. The construction technique provides a quick, easy, and cost effective means of constructing a phantom for use in nuclear medicine imaging. (C) 2009 American Association of Physicists in Medicine. [DOI: 10.1118/1.3250855]