What is planar scintigraphy?
Planar scintigraphy is a nuclear medicine technique in which non-tomographic (2D) planar images of the spatial distribution and amount of accumulation of a radiotracer in the body are created. This is performed using a gamma camera system, including a collimator made of perforated or folded lead to absorb most emitted radiation from the radiotracer except that arriving perpendicular to the detector face, and a thallium-doped sodium iodine scintillation crystal. Unfortunately, the collimator wastes > 99% of the emitted signal and is rate-limiting. Planar images can be obtained either statically or dynamically over time to create a video of a particular physiological process of interest.