A Pilot Study on Simultaneous Estimation of Cerebral Capillary Permeability to Glucose Using the Extended Patlak...

This pilot study aimed to extend the Patlak method to estimate cerebral capillary permeability to glucose by incorporating the early phase of fluorine-18 fluoro-2-deoxyglucose kinetics in dynamic positron emission tomography. By using the experimental data acquired from human subjects and computer simulations, we demonstrated the feasibility of simultaneously assessing capillary permeability and metabolic uptake rate. Specifically, the derived parametric values were able to distinguish cortical gray matter, subcortical structures, and white matter, while reasonably agreeing with previously reported physiological ranges. The model fitting was robust at the levels of signal-to-noise ratio achievable with current clinical settings.Clinical Relevance- This study establishes the feasibility to simultaneously assess cerebral vascular supply and metabolic uptake of glucose.