SPECT scan now medically acceptable for brain injury diagnosis and prognosis: nuclear medicine group

Brain injury survivors can benefit from the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine (CANM)’s recent adoption, ratification and endorsement of the Guidelines for Brain Perfusion Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), a blog post by Thomson Rogers has said.

These guidelines aim to help nuclear medicine practitioners and clinicians in Canada when making recommendations, assessing, performing, processing, interpreting and reporting the results of brain perfusion SPECT with the use of ECD and HMPAO, two commercially available 99mTc-labelled radiopharmaceuticals.

Thomson Rogers’s blog post dubs this a major development because it means that a SPECT scan, a type of brain diagnostic technology, is now medically recognized as acceptable for the diagnosis and prognosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI). A SPECT scan tracks blood flow, with normal blood flow showing the brain’s healthy parts and with decreased blood perfusion singling out the damaged areas. According to nuclear medicine specialists, such SPECT tests can provide more detail regarding the presence and extent of the brain injuries, particularly mild TBI.

The blog post said that this development may potentially benefit brain injury survivors through assisting in diagnosing traumatic brain injuries sooner, refraining from dismissing symptoms of brain damage as imagined pains, reducing the stigma and uncertainty surrounding the nature of these injuries and advancing earlier access to accident benefits for catastrophic injuries.

SPECT scans may also help those living with brain injuries secure fair compensation in the event of a motor vehicle accident deemed non-catastrophic, where the statutory accident benefits are capped at $65,000, an insufficient amount for TBI survivors, said the blog post.

Those living with brain injury, as well as their families, may have found it challenging to persuade their doctors and lawyers of their injuries, but the new guidelines may help address this issue, the blog post suggested.

“With SPECT showing positive findings of brain injury, recognition follows and funding for treatment has the potential to address the devastating impact of loss of brain function, so long as survivors can get the rehabilitation and care they need,” the blog post said.

With the exception of the 2018 Procedure Guidelines of the European Society of Nuclear Medicine, the CANM’s new guidelines marks the first update on the use of SPECT since 2009. The development of the new guidelines was informed by the 2009 guidelines of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine Neuroimaging Committee. It also drew from new studies on the use of brain perfusion scintigraphy in brain trauma, neuro-psychiatry and inflammation and from new available instrumentation via solid state detectors and multiple pinhole detectors.