A SPECT scanner gamma camera costs $400,000 to $600,000, while a PET-CT scanner can cost around $2 million. The main positives of SPECT scanning are that it’s much more available and widely used and much cheaper than PET. “They will say, ‘Yeah, you have a great tool, but what works best?’” “CMS will hold us to the costs,” he said. Both components are needed to convince CMS to provide reimbursements. In addition to testing which modality is better for perfusion imaging, he said research also needs to provide more cost analysis and consider patient throughputs. He said the jury is still out in his mind. Faulhaber M.D., associate professor of radiology, Case Western Reserve University, director of clinical PET, University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, OH. More research is needed to compare SPECT and PET, said Peter F. “It’s a very hard question to answer,” he said “We are in a time of a lot of change in diagnostic cardiac imaging.” Berman, M.D., FACC, director of nuclear cardiology/cardiac imaging, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Technology for both modalities is also advancing rapidly, said Daniel S. “It is difficult to give an answer because they both have their strengths and weaknesses.” “This has been an ongoing debate for a long time – which one is better,” said Diwakar Jain, M.D., FACC, FRCP, FASNC, professor of medicine, director of nuclear cardiology, Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia.

If the case went to court for whether positron emission tomography (PET) or single, photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is better suited for nuclear cardiology myocardial perfusion imaging, experts say the current technology and developments on the horizon would result in a hung jury. An updated version of this story covering more recent PET and SPECT advances is available at this link.

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