Evaluation of ECG-gated [(11)C]acetate PET for measuring left ventricular volumes, mass, and myocardial external efficiency
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 22, 2026

High-Resolution Cardiac Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography for Small Animals
Published on: December 16, 2022
Nils Henrik Hansson1, Lars Tolbod2, Hendrik Johannes Harms2
1Department of Cardiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark. nilhan@rm.dk.
Background:
Noninvasive estimation of myocardial external efficiency (MEE) requires measurements of left ventricular (LV) oxygen consumption with [(11)C]acetate PET in addition to LV stroke volume and mass with cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR). Measuring LV geometry directly from ECG-gated [(11)C]acetate PET might enable MEE evaluation from a single PET scan. Therefore, we sought to establish the accuracy of measuring LV volumes, mass, and MEE directly from ECG-gated [(11)C]acetate PET.
Methods:
Thirty-five subjects with aortic valve stenosis underwent ECG-gated [(11)C]acetate PET and CMR. List mode PET data were rebinned into 16-bin ECG-gated uptake images before measuring LV volumes and mass using commercial software and compared to CMR. Dynamic datasets were used for calculation of mean LV oxygen consumption and MEE.
Results:
LV mass, volumes, and ejection fraction measured by CMR and PET correlated strongly (r = 0.86-0.92, P < .001 for all), but were underestimated by PET (P < .001 for all except ESV P = .79). PET-based MEE, corrected for bias, correlated fairly with PET/CMR-based MEE (r = 0.60, P < .001, bias -3 ± 21%, P = .56). PET-based MEE bias was strongly associated with LV wall thickness.
Conclusions:
Although analysis-related improvements in accuracy are recommended, LV geometry estimated from ECG-gated [(11)C]acetate PET correlate excellently with CMR and can indeed be used to evaluate MEE.
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