. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Apr 1.

Published in final edited form as: Mol Imaging Biol. 2014 Apr;16(2):235–245. doi: 10.1007/s11307-013-0686-z

Table 1.

Comparison of microSPECT and microCT imaging parameters, advantages, and limitations.

	MicroSPECT	MicroCT
Spatial resolution^*	350 × 350 × 350 μm³	88 × 88 × 88 μm³
Voxel Volume	42.9 nL	0.68 nL
CNR	5.09 ± 1.6	8.82 ± 1.9
Acquisition time	120 minutes ^**	5-10 minutes
Radiation Dose	400-800 mGy	360 mGy
Advantages	evaluates both function and perfusion in a single acquisition quantifies radiotracer uptake in tissues detects myocardial ischemia/infarction nanomolar sensitivity in detection of molecular probes [41].	fast quantitative measurement of tissue density lower radiation dose vs. SPECT higher spatial resolution and CNR compared to SPECT
Disadvantages	longer acquisition time radiotracer availability ionizing radiation	requires contrast agent ionizing radiation unable to detect myocardial perfusion defects ^***

true spatial resolution, microSPECT images were reconstructed with a voxel resolution of 125 microns for analysis

^**

further experimentation needed to determine minimum combination of scan time/radiotracer injected activity required for cardiac functional analysis in Vitrea®

^***

for MicroCT with blood pool contrast agent. Note, however, that imaging myocardial infarction is possible via delayed hyper-enhancement [28].

CNR = contrast-to-noise ratio