Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 22, 2026
High-Resolution Cardiac Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography for Small Animals
Published on: December 16, 2022
Quantification of regional myocardial blood flow estimation with three-dimensional dynamic rubidium-82 PET and
Chietsugu Katoh1, Keiichiro Yoshinaga, Ran Klein
1Department of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Kita12 Nishi5, Kita-Ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0812, Japan. chtgkato@med.hokudai.ac.jp
Purpose:
Myocardial blood flow (MBF) estimation with (82)Rubidium ((82)Rb) positron emission tomography (PET) is technically difficult because of the high spillover between regions of interest, especially due to the long positron range. We sought to develop a new algorithm to reduce the spillover in image-derived blood activity curves, using non-uniform weighted least-squares fitting.
Methods:
Fourteen volunteers underwent imaging with both 3-dimensional (3D) (82)Rb and (15)O-water PET at rest and during pharmacological stress. Whole left ventricular (LV) (82)Rb MBF was estimated using a one-compartment model, including a myocardium-to-blood spillover correction to estimate the corresponding blood input function Ca(t)(whole). Regional K1 values were calculated using this uniform global input function, which simplifies equations and enables robust estimation of MBF. To assess the robustness of the modified algorithm, inter-operator repeatability of 3D (82)Rb MBF was compared with a previously established method.
Results:
Whole LV correlation of (82)Rb MBF with (15)O-water MBF was better (P < .01) with the modified spillover correction method (r = 0.92 vs r = 0.60). The modified method also yielded significantly improved inter-operator repeatability of regional MBF quantification (r = 0.89) versus the established method (r = 0.82) (P < .01).
Conclusion:
A uniform global input function can suppress LV spillover into the image-derived blood input function, resulting in improved precision for MBF quantification with 3D (82)Rb PET.
