Abdominal SPECT imaging.

Over the past several years, abdominal single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging has evolved from a research tool to an important clinical imaging modality that is helpful in the diagnostic assessment of a wide variety of disorders involving the abdominal viscera. Although liver-spleen imaging is the most popular of the abdominal SPECT procedures, blood pool imaging is becoming much more widely utilized for the evaluation of cavernous hemangiomas of the liver as well as other vascular abnormalities in the abdomen. Adjunctive indium leukocyte and gallium SPECT studies are also proving to be of value in the assessment of a variety of infectious and neoplastic diseases. As more experience is acquired in this area, SPECT should become the primary imaging modality for both gallium and indium white blood cells in many institutions. Renal SPECT, on the other hand, has only recently been used as a clinical imaging modality for the assessment of such parameters as renal depth and volume. The exact role of renal SPECT as a clinical tool is, therefore, yet to be determined.