Published Online
on June 17, 2002

A more recent version of this article appeared on July 2, 2002

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Submitted on January 31, 2002
Revised on April 18, 2002
Accepted on April 18, 2002

Noninvasive Measurement of Myocardial Activity Concentrations and Perfusion Defect Sizes in Rats With a New Small-Animal Positron Emission Tomograph

Takashi Kudo MD, Kazuki Fukuchi MD, Alexander J. Annala PhD, Arion F. Chatziioannou PhD, Vivekanand Allada MD, Magnus Dahlbom PhD, Yuan-Chuan Tai; , Masayuki Inubushi MD, Sung-Cheng Huang DSc, Simon R. Cherry PhD, Michael E. Phelps PhD, and Heinrich R. Schelbert MD^*

From the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, Laboratory of Structural Biology and Molecular Medicine and Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, UCLA School of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles.

Background—We explored the feasibility of measuring regional tracer activity concentrations and flow defects in myocardium of rats with a high spatial resolution small-animal PET system (microPET).

Methods and Results—Myocardial images were obtained after intravenous ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸FDG) in 11 normal rats (group 1) and assembled into polar maps. Regional ¹⁸F activity concentrations were measured in 9 regions of interest and compared with tissue activity concentrations measured by well counting. In another 9 rats (group 2), myocardial perfusion images were acquired with ¹³N-ammonia at baseline and during coronary occlusion. On the polar maps recorded during coronary occlusion, the size of perfusion defects was measured as the myocardium with <50% of maximum activity and expressed as percent total myocardium and was correlated with the area at risk defined by postmortem staining. The diagnostic quality of ¹⁸FDG and ¹³N-ammonia microPET images was good to excellent; the images were easily assembled into polar maps. In group 1, regional ¹⁸F concentrations by microPET and postmortem were correlated linearly (r=0.99; P<0.01 for average and r=0.97; P<0.01 for regional concentrations). In group 2, perfusion defect sizes by microPET and postmortem were correlated linearly (P<0.01; r=0.93).

Conclusions—The findings indicate the feasibility of noninvasive studies of the myocardium in rats with a dedicated small-animal PET-imaging device.

Key words: myocardium • imaging • perfusion

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