TY - JOUR T1 - Assessment of Myocardial Blood Flow Using <sup>15</sup>O-Water and 1-<sup>11</sup>C-Acetate in Rats with Small-Animal PET JF - Journal of Nuclear Medicine JO - J Nucl Med SP - 477 LP - 485 VL - 47 IS - 3 AU - Pilar Herrero AU - Joonyoung Kim AU - Terry L. Sharp AU - John A. Engelbach AU - Jason S. Lewis AU - Robert J. Gropler AU - Michael J. Welch Y1 - 2006/03/01 UR - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/47/3/477.abstract N2 - This feasibility study was undertaken to determine whether myocardial blood flow (MBF, mL/g/min) could be quantified noninvasively in small rodents using microPET and 15O-water or 1-11C-acetate. Methods: MBF was measured in 18 healthy rats using PET and 15O-water (MBF-W) under different interventions and compared with direct measurements obtained with microspheres (MBF-M). Subsequently, MBF was estimated in 24 rats at rest using 1-11C-acetate (MBF-Ace) and compared with measurements obtained with 15O-water. Using factor analysis, images were processed to obtain 1 blood and 1 myocardial time–activity curve per tracer per study. MBF-W was calculated using a well-validated 1-compartment kinetic model. MBF-Ace was estimated using a simple 1-compartment model to estimate net tracer uptake, K1 (K1 (mL/g/min) = MBF·E; E = first-pass myocardial extraction of 1-11C-acetate) and washout (k2 (min−1)) along with FBM (spillover correction) after fixing FMM (partial-volume correction) to values obtained from 15O-water modeling. K1 values were converted to MBF values using a first-pass myocardial extraction/flow relationship measured in rats (E = 1.0−0.74·exp(−1.13/MBF)). Results: In the first study, MBF-W correlated well with MBF-M (y = 0.74x + 0.96; n = 18, r = 0.91, P &lt; 0.0001). However, the slope was different than unity, P &lt; 0.05). Refitting of the data after forcing the intercept to be zero resulted in a nonbias correlation between MBF-W and MBF-M (y = 0.95x + 0.0; n = 18, r = 0.86, P &lt; 0.0001) demonstrating that the underestimation of the slope could be attributed to the overestimation of MBF-W for 2 MBF-M values lower than 1.50 mL/g/min. In the second study, MBF-Ace values correlated well with MBF-W with no underestimation of MBF (y = 0.91x + 0.35; n = 24, r = 0.87, P &lt; 0.0001). Conclusion: MBF can be quantified by PET using 15O-water or 1-11C-acetate in healthy rats. Future studies are needed to determine the accuracy of the methods in low-flow states and to develop an approach for a partial-volume correction when 1-11C-acetate is used. ER -