Compartment modelling in nuclear medicine: a new program for the determination of transfer coefficients

In many investigations concerning transport/exchange of matter in a natural system, e.g. functional studies in nuclear medicine, it is advantageous to relate experimental results to a model of the system. This paper presents a new computer program for the determination of linear transfer coefficients in a compartment model from experimentally observed time-compartment content curves. The program performs a least-square fit with the specified precision of the observed values as weight factors. The resulting uncertainty in the calculated transfer coefficients may also be assessed. The application of the program in nuclear medicine is demonstrated and discussed.