Brain scanning with the Anger multiplane tomographic scanner as a primary examination. Evaluation by the ROC method.

A commercial prototype of the Anger multiplane tomographic scanner was compared with a scintillation camera, in terms of observer performance, as a primary instrument for brain scintigraphy. Observer performance (diagnostic accuracy), expressed as ROC curves, was slightly better when reading the tomographic scans than when reading the camera images. In brain scintigraphy of a general population, the scanner has a small advantage over the scintillation camera. This advantage is directly proportional to the fraction of cases in which there is difficulty differentiating intracranial lesions from superficial foci of activity on the camera image.