Measurement of cortical dopamine d1 receptor binding with 11C[SCH23390]: a test-retest analysis

[11C]SCH 23390 is a standard ligand for positron emission tomography (PET) studies on striatal dopamine D1 receptors. Its usefulness for cortical D1 receptor quantification in human PET studies has been questioned but has not been addressed previously. The authors tested the reproducibility of [11C]SCH 23390 binding potential (BP) in cortical areas in five healthy volunteers using three-dimensional PET. Measurement of D1 receptor BP was reproducible in basal ganglia, as well as in all cortical areas studied (intraclass correlation coefficients between 0.81 and 0.92). The absolute variability in cortical areas was 9.21% +/- 0.07%. The reproducibility of cortical D1 receptor BP measurement with [11C]SCH 23390 is equal to that observed with a more recent D1-ligand, [11C]NNC 112. [11C]NNC 112 produces slightly higher specific-to-nonspecific binding ratios but has markedly slower kinetics resulting in a need for a longer scan time. These aspects should be considered when designing studies on the cortical D1-like receptors.