Optimization of temporal sampling for 82rubidium PET myocardial blood flow quantification

• Published in: Journal of nuclear cardiology 2017-10, Vol.24 (5), p.1517-1529
• Main Authors: Lee, Benjamin C., Moody, Jonathan B., Weinberg, Richard L., Corbett, James R., Ficaro, Edward P., Murthy, Venkatesh L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cardiology; Imaging; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; myocardial blood flow; myocardial flow reserve; Myocardial perfusion imaging: PET; Nuclear Medicine; Original Article; Radiology; Rubidium-82; temporal sampling
• ISSN: 1071-3581; 1532-6551
• DOI: 10.1007/s12350-017-0899-7

Suboptimal temporal sampling of left ventricular (LV) blood pool and tissue time-activity curves (TACs) may introduce bias and increased variability in estimates of myocardial blood flow (MBF) and flow reserve (MFR) from dynamic PET myocardial perfusion images. We aimed to optimize temporal sampling for estimation of MBF and MFR. Twenty-four normal volunteers and 32 patients underwent dynamic stress/rest rubidium-82 chloride (82Rb) PET imaging. Fine temporal sampling was used to estimate the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the LV blood pool TAC. Fourier analysis was used to determine the longest sampling interval, TS, as a function of FWHM, which preserved the information content of the blood phase. Dynamic datasets were reconstructed with frame durations varying from 2 to 20 seconds over the first 2 minutes for the blood phase and 30 to 120 seconds for the tissue phase. The LV blood pool and tissue TACs were sampled using regions of interest (ROI) and fit to a compartment model for quantification of MBF and MFR. The effects of temporal sampling on MBF and MFR were evaluated using clinical data and simulations. TS increased linearly with input function FWHM (R = 0.93). Increasing the blood phase frame duration from 5 to 15 seconds resulted in MBF and MFR biases of 6-12% and increased variability of 14-24%. Frame durations