Modelling of FDG metabolism in liver voxels

Kinetic analysis is a tool used to glean additional information from positron emission tomography (PET) data by exploiting the dynamics of tissue metabolism. The standard irreversible and reversible two compartment models used in kinetic analysis were initially developed to analyse brain PET data. The application of kinetic analysis to PET of the liver presents the opportunity to move beyond the generic standard models and develop physiologically informed pharmacokinetic models that incorporate structural and functional features in particular to the liver. In this paper, we develop a new compartment model, called the tubes model, which is informed by the liver׳s sinusoidal architecture, high fractional blood volume, high perfusion rate, and large hepatocyte surface area facing the space of Disse. The tubes model distributes tracer between the blood and intracellular compartments in more physiologically faithful proportions than the standard model, producing parametric images with improved contrast between healthy and neoplastic tissue.