Implementation of a digital image superposition algorithm for radionuclide images: an assessment of its accuracy and reproducibility.

An operator-interactive algorithm to achieve superposition of organ images has been used with a dedicated nuclear medicine computer system. Its purpose is to achieve organ registration in 128 X 128 digitized images before a direct numerical comparison of the regional distribution of a deposited radiotracer is performed. The accuracy and reproducibility of the algorithm for myocardial images has been tested by four operators, using a set of 28 image pairs in which the relative position of the heart differed by more than 10 mm for each pair. Comparing their results with the known displacements on two occasions provided an assessment of these two important parameters. The accuracy and reproducibility for superposing myocardial images by this digital technique are found to be well within the spatial resolution (FWHM) of the imaging system of the Tl-201 tracer studied.