TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of tissue photon attenuation in small animal cardiac PET imaging
AU - Hayakawa, Nobuyuki
AU - Yamane, Tomohiko
AU - Arias-Loza, Anahi Paula
AU - Shinaji, Tetsuya
AU - Wakabayashi, Hiroshi
AU - Lapa, Constantin
AU - Werner, Rudolf A.
AU - Javadi, Mehrbod S.
AU - Pelzer, Theo
AU - Higuchi, Takahiro
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is partly supported by the Competence Network of Heart Failure funded by the Integrated Research and Treatment Center (IFB) of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research ( BMBF 01EO1004 ) and the German Research Council (DFG grant HI 1789/2-1 and HI 1789/3-3 ).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd
PY - 2017/1/15
Y1 - 2017/1/15
N2 - Objectives Tissue photon attenuation is one of the essential artifacts requiring correction in clinical cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. However, due to small body size its impact on diagnostic accuracy in small rodents is considered to be limited or even ignorable. The present cardiac PET study compares lean and obese rats to determine the influence of tissue attenuation on quantitative assessment as well as regional tracer distribution. Methods A dedicated small animal PET system equipped with a 57Co rotating source for transmission was used. To assess the impact of tissue attenuation in rats with different body sizes, cardiac 18FFDG -PET studies for Zucker diabetic fatty rats (obese rats) and Zucker lean rats (lean rats) were performed. The radiotracer activity reduction by attenuation was compared between the two groups. Regional tracer distribution calculated with and without attenuation correction was also assessed. Results The chest diameter was significantly longer in obese than in lean rats (5.6 ± 0.3 cm in obese and 4.5 ± 0.2 cm in lean rats, p < 0.0001). Whereas the activity reduction by attenuation was significantly greater in obese than in lean rats (44.1 ± 2.5% and 5.1 ± 3.1%, p < 0.0001), the regional variation of tissue attenuation among the ventricular walls was minimal in both lean (p = 0.73) and obese rats (p = 0.65). Conclusion Attenuation correction is indispensable for accurate comparison of cardiac tracer activity between animals with different body size, whereas it can be omitted for evaluation of regional tracer distribution.
AB - Objectives Tissue photon attenuation is one of the essential artifacts requiring correction in clinical cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. However, due to small body size its impact on diagnostic accuracy in small rodents is considered to be limited or even ignorable. The present cardiac PET study compares lean and obese rats to determine the influence of tissue attenuation on quantitative assessment as well as regional tracer distribution. Methods A dedicated small animal PET system equipped with a 57Co rotating source for transmission was used. To assess the impact of tissue attenuation in rats with different body sizes, cardiac 18FFDG -PET studies for Zucker diabetic fatty rats (obese rats) and Zucker lean rats (lean rats) were performed. The radiotracer activity reduction by attenuation was compared between the two groups. Regional tracer distribution calculated with and without attenuation correction was also assessed. Results The chest diameter was significantly longer in obese than in lean rats (5.6 ± 0.3 cm in obese and 4.5 ± 0.2 cm in lean rats, p < 0.0001). Whereas the activity reduction by attenuation was significantly greater in obese than in lean rats (44.1 ± 2.5% and 5.1 ± 3.1%, p < 0.0001), the regional variation of tissue attenuation among the ventricular walls was minimal in both lean (p = 0.73) and obese rats (p = 0.65). Conclusion Attenuation correction is indispensable for accurate comparison of cardiac tracer activity between animals with different body size, whereas it can be omitted for evaluation of regional tracer distribution.
KW - Attenuation correction
KW - Cardiac PET
KW - Small animal
KW - Tissue photon attenuation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.ijcard.2016.11.119
DO - 10.1016/j.ijcard.2016.11.119
M3 - Article
C2 - 27839818
AN - SCOPUS:85006077925
SN - 0167-5273
VL - 227
SP - 257
EP - 260
JO - International Journal of Cardiology
JF - International Journal of Cardiology
ER -