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Pharmacokinetics and Modeling

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Molecular Imaging and Targeted Therapy

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Abstract

Molecular imaging of radiotracer distribution by PET or SPECT studies permits the measurement of the time course of uptake and clearance of specific tracers from different organs, and tissues. Quantitative measurement of the local radiotracer activity is essential to assess the local physiological function quantitatively. The standardized uptake value (SUV) is a unit-less number that normalizes the lesion uptake to the injected dose per unit of body weight. The radiotracer kinetic physiologic modeling of dynamic imaging data provides the link between activity levels measured in a specific region of interest (ROI) in the functional scan and the physiologic parameters associated with the particular function being studied. Two- and three-compartment models can be used to describe radiotracer kinetics in vivo. Based on the equations of ligand-receptor interactions, quantitative parameters such as binding potential and affinity can be estimated. Graphical analysis techniques (such as Patlak and Logan plot) are simple methods for the analysis of data from radiotracer PET and SPECT imaging studies. This chapter provides a broad overview of pharmacokinetic modeling techniques, and practical applications of determining the quantitative parameters from dynamic molecular imaging data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emeritus of Radiochemistry and Radiopharmacy in Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New York, NY, USA

    Shankar Vallabhajosula

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  1. Shankar Vallabhajosula
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Correspondence to Shankar Vallabhajosula .

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Vallabhajosula, S. (2023). Pharmacokinetics and Modeling. In: Molecular Imaging and Targeted Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23205-3_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23205-3_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-23203-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-23205-3

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