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Biodistribution and estimation of radiation-absorbed doses in humans for 13N-ammonia PET

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Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the biodistribution of radiation-absorbed doses of 13N-ammonia in healthy people.

Methods

Five healthy human subjects underwent whole-body PET and CT scans after injection of 555–740 MBq of 13N-ammonia. Five serial dynamic emission scans in each healthy volunteer were acquired. Regions of interest were drawn on the CT image and transferred to the corresponding transverse PET slice. Estimates of the radiation-absorbed doses were calculated using the medical internal radiation dosimetry method.

Results

The highest concentrations of 13N-ammonia were found in the heart and liver, followed by pancreas, brain, spleen and stomach. The highest absorbed organ doses were to the heart wall (7.14E−03 ± 3.63E−03 mGy/MBq) and kidneys (6.02E−03 ± 3.53E−03 mGy/MBq). The effective dose (ED) was 6.58E−03 ± 1.23E−03 mSv/MBq.

Conclusions

With these new estimates for 13N-ammonia dosimetry, the results for Chinese people were not appreciably different from those of the previous study performed with old devices. As one of the most important myocardial perfusion PET tracers, the whole-body 13N-ammonia PET appears to be safe for humans, yielding a relatively modest radiation burden that would allow multiple PET studies on the same subject per year.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Professor Ganghua Tang who provided the generous gift of a copy of the S value tables. This study was supported by the 973 program No. 2015CB755500 and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81271599).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, 58#, Zhongshan Er Road, Guangzhou, 510080, China

    Chang Yi, Xinchong Shi, Qiao He, Xuezhen Zhang & Xiangsong Zhang

  2. Department of Medical Equipment, The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Donglan Yu

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  1. Chang Yi
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  2. Donglan Yu
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  3. Xinchong Shi
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  4. Qiao He
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Correspondence to Xiangsong Zhang.

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Yi, C., Yu, D., Shi, X. et al. Biodistribution and estimation of radiation-absorbed doses in humans for 13N-ammonia PET. Ann Nucl Med 29, 810–815 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-015-1012-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12149-015-1012-4

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