NCT Quality Control & Equipment Assurance 3

Question 1

Which organization provides nuclear cardiology laboratory accreditation standards that include specific equipment quality assurance requirements?

Accepted Answer

IAC (Intersocietal Accreditation Commission) and ACR (American College of Radiology)

Answer

Both IAC Nuclear/PET and ACR Nuclear Medicine accreditation programs mandate documented QC protocols, equipment performance testing, and physicist oversight for nuclear cardiology laboratories.

Question 2

The Jaszczak phantom is used in SPECT quality control primarily to evaluate:

Accepted Answer

System tomographic resolution, contrast, and uniformity simultaneously using rods and spheres

Answer

The Jaszczak phantom contains cold spheres (for contrast evaluation) and fillable rod sections (for resolution) immersed in a uniform activity background, enabling a comprehensive SPECT performance assessment.

Question 3

A pixel size calibration test on a gamma camera is performed to verify that:

Accepted Answer

Image pixel dimensions accurately represent true physical distances in the patient or phantom

Answer

Incorrect pixel size calibration causes errors in quantitative measurements such as left ventricular volumes and ejection fraction calculations in gated SPECT studies.

Question 4

The count rate capability test determines:

Accepted Answer

The activity level at which dead time losses become clinically significant (typically 20% count loss)

Answer

Count rate capability characterizes the camera's linear operating range; knowing the activity at which 20% dead time loss occurs prevents clinical acquisitions from underestimating true activity.

Question 5

Which QC procedure verifies that an attenuation correction system (CT or external source) is functioning correctly for cardiac SPECT?

Accepted Answer

Imaging a uniform cylinder phantom and confirming reconstructed uniformity after attenuation correction

Answer

A uniform cylinder (or torso) phantom imaged with the full AC workflow should produce a uniform reconstructed image; residual non-uniformity indicates errors in the CT-based or transmission-based correction map.

NCT - Nuclear Cardiology Technologist Practice Test

NCT - Nuclear Cardiology Technologist Practice Test

NCT Quality Control & Equipment Assurance 3