PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Prasad V.S.V. Neti AU - Roger W. Howell TI - Lognormal Distribution of Cellular Uptake of Radioactivity: Statistical Analysis of α-Particle Track Autoradiography AID - 10.2967/jnumed.107.048843 DP - 2008 Jun 01 TA - Journal of Nuclear Medicine PG - 1009--1016 VI - 49 IP - 6 4099 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/49/6/1009.short 4100 - http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/49/6/1009.full SO - J Nucl Med2008 Jun 01; 49 AB - Recently, the distribution of radioactivity among a population of cells labeled with 210Po was shown to be well described by a lognormal (LN) distribution function (J Nucl Med. 2006;47:1049–1058) with the aid of autoradiography. To ascertain the influence of Poisson statistics on the interpretation of the autoradiographic data, the present work reports on a detailed statistical analysis of these earlier data. Methods: The measured distributions of α-particle tracks per cell were subjected to statistical tests with Poisson, LN, and Poisson-lognormal (P-LN) models. Results: The LN distribution function best describes the distribution of radioactivity among cell populations exposed to 0.52 and 3.8 kBq/mL of 210Po-citrate. When cells were exposed to 67 kBq/mL, the P-LN distribution function gave a better fit; however, the underlying activity distribution remained lognormal. Conclusion: The present analysis generally provides further support for the use of LN distributions to describe the cellular uptake of radioactivity. Care should be exercised when analyzing autoradiographic data on activity distributions to ensure that Poisson processes do not distort the underlying LN distribution.