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Radionuclide Imaging of Cerebral Blood Flow

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Quantification of Biophysical Parameters in Medical Imaging

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Abstract

Blood flow serves numerous important functions in the living body. It is particularly important for the brain, because of the brain’s high energy demand and its lack of capacity to store energy. Impairment of cerebral blood flow plays a central role in a wide spectrum of diseases, including not only cerebrovascular diseases but also neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, measurement of cerebral blood flow has many clinical and preclinical indications. This chapter describes radionuclide imaging methods for quantitative imaging of regional cerebral blood flow. After introducing the general principles of radionuclide imaging, positron-emission tomography (PET) with the freely diffusible tracer oxygen-15-labeled water and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with the chemical microsphere Tc-99m-HMPAO are presented in detail. A representative clinical application is shown for both modalities. Finally, the utility of multi-pinhole small animal SPECT with Tc-99m-HMPAO for brain perfusion imaging in mice is discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Ralph Buchert

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  1. Ralph Buchert
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Correspondence to Ralph Buchert .

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  1. Department of Radiology, Humboldt University of Berlin Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

    Ingolf Sack

  2. Medical Physics and Metrological Information Technology, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt , Berlin, Germany

    Tobias Schaeffter

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Buchert, R. (2018). Radionuclide Imaging of Cerebral Blood Flow. In: Sack, I., Schaeffter, T. (eds) Quantification of Biophysical Parameters in Medical Imaging. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65924-4_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65924-4_21

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