Positron Emission Reconstruction Tomography For The Assessment Of Regional Myocardial Metabolism By The Administration Of Substrates Labeled With Cyclotron Produced Radionuclides
The conventional methods for the assess-ment of myocardial functional integrity, which rely on the external detection of an administered radiopharmaceutical, share the following crippling limitations. (1) The field of view of the radiation detector always encompasses the contribution of activity contained in tissues overlying and underlying the plane of interest. This contribution, which in general cannot be subtracted from the measured signal, contributes noise, and in general considerably depresses the contrast in the plane of interest between tissues containing different activities. (2) The attenuation of the gamma radiation originating from the activity in the myocardium is dependent upon the amount of tissue interposed between the myocardium and the radiation detector. This effect is difficult to compensate for. The combination of the above two defects seriously depresses contrast in myocardial nuclear imaging, and all but precludes the reliable quantitative assessment of the distribution of a radio-active label in the myocardium.