The consequences of a new software package for the quantification of gated-SPECT myocardial perfusion studies

Semiquantitative analysis of myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) has reduced inter- and intraobserver variability, and enables researchers to compare parameters in the same patient over time, or between groups of patients. There are several software packages available that are designed to process MPS data and quantify parameters. In this study the performances of two systems, quantitative gated SPECT (QGS) and 4D-MSPECT, in the processing of clinical patient data and phantom data were compared. The clinical MPS data of 148 consecutive patients were analysed using QGS and 4D-MSPECT to determine the end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume and left ventricular ejection fraction. Patients were divided into groups based on gender, body mass index, heart size, stressor type and defect type. The AGATE dynamic heart phantom was used to provide reference values for the left ventricular ejection fraction. Although the correlations were excellent (correlation coefficients 0.886 to 0.980) for all parameters, significant differences (p < 0.001) were found between the systems. Bland-Altman plots indicated that 4D-MSPECT provided overall higher values of all parameters than QGS. These differences between the systems were not significant in patients with a small heart (end-diastolic volume < 70 ml). Other clinical factors had no direct influence on the relationship. Additionally, the phantom data indicated good linear responses of both systems. The discrepancies between these software packages were clinically relevant, and influenced by heart size. The possibility of such discrepancies should be taken into account when a new quantitative software system is introduced, or when multiple software systems are used in the same institution.Vascular Biology and Interventio

Writing Genealogies: an exploration of Foucault's strategies for doing research

In following Foucault, I think that I have become passionately interested in a wider shift in the European intellectual landscape: the return of ethics as a primary issue in the philosophical agenda, after so many years of the primary position of politics. I think that far from abandoning politics, this shift has been working towards redefining the subject(s) of politics and the very notion of P/politics itself. Following Foucault's intellectual paths, and especially his suggestion for writing genealogies, turned out to be an exciting adventure. There were a lot of things to be discovered. Foucault had used the term 'genealogy' to describe his work, but he insisted on not following any certain methodology to do that. On the contrary he was against all closed types of methodologies and instead he was continually slipping away from being committed to any of them. His intellectual work has been rather a move to go 'beyond' any existing theories and/or methodologies, yet he kept on referring again and again to his works as genealogies. This paper is therefore focusing on the very ontology of the Foucauldian genealogy, being aware of the vanity of any attempt to frame the Foucauldian genealogy as a closed method for research, but at the same time acknowledging the need to map the Foucauldian genealogy in a cartography of contemporary problematics upon social and historical research