Cardiac Imaging with a High Pressure Low Dead Time Multiwire Proportional Chamber

A sealed, 10 atmosphere MWPC has been constructed for cardiac imaging applications in nuclear medicine. Spatial resolution is < 3.5mm and count rate characteristics are a factor of 2 better than current cameras, resulting in improved statistical quality of information. Major applications are first pass radionuclide angiocardiograms with 9.3 m. Ta-178 and 4.9s Ir-191m. Animal and patient studies have been performed and the advantages of this system have been demonstrated.