DECOMPRESSION ILLNESS IN SPORTS DIVERS DETECTED WITH TECHNETIUM-99M-HMPAO SPECT AND TEXTURE ANALYSIS

Diving for sport and recreation has increased in recent years, resulti ng in more incidences of diving illness. Therefore, we studied potenti al use of regional cerebral blood flow SPECT imaging with Tc-99m-HMPAO in the management of divers who have experienced decompression illnes s (DCI). Methods: A group of ten sports divers who had no experience o f DCI were compared with ten sports divers who had experienced at leas t one episode of DCI. Transaxial SPECT images were first compared obje ctively using a first-order texture measure and then subjectively usin g a receiver operator characteristic (ROC) experiment. Experienced obs ervers were asked to rate images subjectively in terms of the images' textural appearance. Results: Both these techniques showed that there is a statistically significant difference between the two groups and t he images produced by the DCI divers were generally more coarsely patc hy when compared to the non DCI divers. The quantitative texture techn ique proved significantly better in identifying divers with DCI than t he visual analysis by observers using ROC curves. Conclusion: Differen ces between the cerebral blood flow patterns of sports divers who have experienced DCI and sports divers who have no experience of DCI can b e detected using Tc-99m-HMPAO SPECT and a texture analysis technique.