Slomka looks at the significance of SPECT-derived quantitative assessment of changes in myocardial perfusion over time and, specifically, after therapy and previews an innovative approach reported in this month’s JNM.
Itti and colleagues report on voxel-based automated myocardial perfusion scintigraphy quantification methods that more accurately assess change after myocardial infarction and therapy.
Okumura and colleagues investigate the relative usefulness of fasting 18F-FDG PET in detecting inflammatory lesions of early-stage cardiac sarcoidosis.
Abidov and colleagues derive and validate the normal threshold for automatically measured left ventricular transient ischemic dilation ratios in patients referred for adenosine stress myocardial perfusion SPECT and consider the integration of these data into routine assessment of coronary artery disease.
Lubberink and colleagues compare the quantitative accuracy of iteratively reconstructed cardiac 18F-FDG PET with that of filtered backprojection for both 2- and 3-dimensional acquisitions to establish an optimal procedure for PET imaging of myocardial viability.
Schaefer and colleagues contrast a range of prone and supine patient positioning values acquired during gated 99mTc-myocardial SPECT and discuss the implications for comparing such values with standard reference data.
Oommen and colleagues assess the use of specific patterns identified on interictal and postictal SPECT to improve localization of epileptogenic foci in the temporal lobe.
El Fakhri and colleagues look at the beneficial effects of improved quantitative image reconstruction with compensation for scatter, attenuation, and variable collimator response on reader performance in discrimination tasks related to the diagnosis of prodromal Alzheimer’s disease.
Roivainen and colleagues report on metabolism and whole-body distribution of intravenously administered 11C-MP4B, a new radiopharmaceutical for PET assessment of butyrylcholinesterase activity.
Wilczek and colleagues compare the abilities of 99mTc-exametazime with those of 99mTc-sestamibi as mammoscintigraphic tumor-imaging radiopharmaceuticals.
Israel and colleagues evaluate the incremental role of 18F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis and management of cancer patients with increasing levels of tumor markers as the sole indicator of potential recurrence after initial successful treatment.
de Boer and colleagues assess whether quantitative 11C-TYR PET has predictive value for survival and therapy outcome in patients with primary squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx.
Kumar and colleagues report on the role and additional benefits of 18F-FDG PET in differentiating benign from metastatic adrenal masses detected on CT or MRI in patients with lung cancer.
Alauddin and colleagues investigate the biodistribution and uptake characteristics of 18F-FFAU, a potentially superior PET agent for HSV1-tk gene expression imaging.
Tian and colleagues describe the detection of cancer gene activity from outside the body by probing with radionuclide-chelator-peptic nucleic acid-peptide chimeras, a technique that could help to avoid unnecessary biopsies.
Takei and colleagues use an experimental model to determine the best timing for detecting apoptosis in vivo with 99mTc-annexin V after chemotherapy.
Siaens and colleagues assess differences and similarities in 2 labeled quinolones, 99mTc-ciprofloxacin and 99mTc-enrofloxacin, as tracers for infection and inflammation in animals.
Hatada and colleagues report on the myocardial uptake and clearance kinetics 99mTc-N-DBODC5, a new myocardial perfusion tracer with superior biodistribution properties that promise to markedly reduce photon scatter problems in myocardial images.
Zanzonico and colleagues investigate the effects of continuing antithyroid drugs at a reduced dosage during 131I therapy to reduce extrathyroid radiation without significantly reducing the target tissue dose.
Shin and colleagues develop a dual-imaging reporter gene system and examine the correlation between cancer cell number and signals from 2 reporter genes, a method that could be used to evaluate the effects of various therapeutic approaches.
Bergmann and colleagues elucidate the tumor cell transport mechanism for a novel 18F-labeled phenylalanine derivative that is presented as a potential PET tracer for imaging of amino acid transport intumors.
ON THE COVER
This whole-body PET image of a healthy male volunteer shows that most of the radioactivity is distributed in the urinary bladder, indicating prompt excretion through the renal system. Renal pelvis, stomach, salivary glands, liver, kidneys, spleen, and vertebral column were also clearly visualized. However, uptake in myocardium, pancreas, and lungs was low. The distribution of 11C-MP4B in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease appears to be in accordance with the distribution of butyrylcholinesterase seen in postmortem studies of human brain, except for an observed higher activity in striatum than in cortex