Effects of tracer blood measurement noise on glucose metabolic rate estimation

Tracer kinetic modeling with Positron Emission Tomography (PET) requires measurements of the time-activity curves in both plasma (PTAC) and tissue (TTAC) to estimate physiological parameters. However, the estimation usually ignores the measurement noise in plasma tracer activity curves. The accuracy and reliability of the physiological parameters estimated by ignoring such noise are not well understood. In this paper, computer simulations were performed to investigate the influence of input measurement noise on the accuracy of estimates. The results show that input measurement noise causes considerable variability in the parameter estimates.