Abstract
Purpose
Conventional dual-head single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/CT systems capable of fast dynamic SPECT (DySPECT) imaging have a potential for flow quantitation. This study introduced a new method to quantify myocardial blood flow (MBF) and myocardial flow reserve (MFR) with DySPECT scan and evaluated the diagnostic performance of detecting coronary artery disease (CAD) compared with perfusion using invasive coronary angiography (CAG) as the reference standard.
Methods
This study included 21 patients with suspected or known CAD who had received DySPECT, ECG-gated SPECT (GSPECT), and CAG (13 with ≥50 % stenosis in any vessel; non-CAD group: 8 with patent arteries or <50 % stenosis). DySPECT and GSPECT scans were performed on a widely used dual-head SPECT/CT scanner. The DySPECT imaging protocol utilized 12-min multiple back-and-forth gantry rotations during injections of 99mTc-sestamibi (MIBI) tracer at rest or dipyridamole-stress stages. DySPECT images were reconstructed with full physical corrections and converted to the physical unit of becquerels per milliliter. Stress MBF (SMBF), rest MBF (RMBF), and MFR were quantified by a one-tissue compartment flow model using time-activity curves derived from DySPECT images. Perfusion images were processed for GSPECT scan and interpreted to obtain summed stress score (SSS) and summed difference score (SDS). Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were conducted to evaluate the diagnostic performance of flow and perfusion.
Results
Using the criteria of ≥50 % stenosis as positive CAD, areas under the ROC curve (AUCs) of flow assessment were overall significantly greater than those of perfusion. For patient-based analysis, AUCs for MFR, SMBF, SSS, and SDS were 0.91 ± 0.07, 0.86 ± 0.09, 0.64 ± 0.12, and 0.59 ± 0.13. For vessel-based analysis, AUCs for MFR, SMBF, SSS, and SDS were 0.81 ± 0.05, 0.76 ± 0.06, 0.62 ± 0.07, and 0.56 ± 0.08, respectively.
Conclusion
The preliminary data suggest that MBF quantitation with a conventional SPECT/CT system and the flow quantitation method is a clinically effective approach to enhance CAD detection.
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Acknowledgment
The authors are thankful to Dr. Ran Klein and Dr. Robert A. deKemp from University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Cardiac PET Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada for their scientific insight and experience of PET flow quantitation to help discussion of this research work. In addition, this study was supported by an internal research grant from Show Chwan Memorial Hospital (Grant Number: RD100012).
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Bailing Hsu and Fu-Chung Chen contributed equally to this work.
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Hsu, B., Chen, FC., Wu, TC. et al. Quantitation of myocardial blood flow and myocardial flow reserve with 99mTc-sestamibi dynamic SPECT/CT to enhance detection of coronary artery disease. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging 41, 2294–2306 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-014-2881-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00259-014-2881-9