First-Pass Techniques Applied to Standard Dynamic Cardiac PET: A reappraisal of Old Invasive Techniques to Assess Cardiac Function

Abstract

Cardiac PET is increasingly performed with dynamic imaging to measure tracer pharmacokinetics in the myocardium. If the early time frames of the PET protocol are sufficiently short and the total amount of injected radioactivity is correctly measured the indicator dilution principle can be applied to PET with most tracers in clinical use, similar to invasive and other noninvasive techniques. The first-pass of the tracer through the heart and lungs can be used to quantify some highly important aspects of cardiovascular function, such as forward cardiac output, transit times, and partial volumes in the central compartments. Additionally, ECG-gated first pass images provide direct access to cardiac volumes and ejection fractions, even for tracers with poor trapping in the myocardial wall, for instance 15O-water. This review summarizes the basic approaches of the indicator dilution principle in clinical use with invasive techniques, and how these techniques can be integrated into a cardiac PET scan.