Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation

These flashcards cover essential vocabulary and concepts related to Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation, focusing on radiation measurement and statistics.

Sensitivity

Measures the ability of a test to detect the condition when the condition is present.

Specificity

Measures the ability of a test to correctly exclude the condition when it is absent.

True Positive (TP)

A test result indicating the presence of a condition when it is actually present.

True Negative (TN)

A test result indicating the absence of a condition when it is actually absent.

False Positive (FP)

A test result indicating the presence of a condition when it is actually absent.

False Negative (FN)

A test result indicating the absence of a condition when it is actually present.

Positive Predictive Value (PPV)

The proportion of positives that correspond to the presence of the condition.

Negative Predictive Value (NPV)

The proportion of negatives that correspond to the absence of the condition.

Accuracy

Refers to how close a measured value is to a standard or known value.

Precision

Refers to the closeness of two or more measurements to each other.

Poisson Statistics

Statistical model applicable to radioactive measurements where standard deviation is the square root of the measured value.

Dead Time

The minimum time separation of radiation events required in order to detect them as distinct events.

Detection Efficiency

Ability of the detector to see the events it should see.

Energy Spectrum

A display of gamma ray interactions that shows different energy peaks.

Baseline Shift

When the next pulse arrives before a preceding pulse has returned to baseline, leading to incorrect energy measurements.

Pulse Pileup

Occurs when pulses occur very close together in time and are recorded as a single event, leading to incorrect energy measurements.

Gamma Ray

High-energy electromagnetic radiation emitted during radioactive decay.