title: Approach to assessing myocardial perfusion in rats using static [13N]-ammonia images and a small-animal PET.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Semi-quantitative, static positron emission tomography (PET) has been used to perform an initial approach to the assessment of [13N]-ammonia perfusion studies aimed to elucidating the effect of injecting human embryonic stem cell-derived (hES) hemangioblasts on infarcted rat hearts.
  
  
  METHODS
  Female NIH nude rats underwent occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery for 30 min before reperfusion. Either one million hES-derived hemangioblasts (n = 5) or control media (n = 4) were injected into the site of the infarct 1 day post-myocardial infarction (MI) under high-resolution echocardiography guidance. PET imaging was performed 6 weeks after MI induction, and uptake polar maps were created by sampling the left ventricle at equidistant slices from the base to the apex and measuring the average myocardium value at three contiguous voxels to minimize partial volume effects. Statistical comparison between treatment and control groups was done with a Mann-Whitney U test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Myocardium uptake ratios for treated and untreated subjects show statistically significant difference (98% certainty).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The straightforward procedure described here (similar to those commonly used in clinical routine) was sufficient to yield statistically significant perfusion differences between the treated and untreated animals despite the small sample size.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioingeniería e Ingeniería Aeroespacial, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Avda. de la Universidad 30, 28911, Leganés, Madrid, Spain. juanjose.vaquero@uc3m.es
authors.forename: Juan José
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Vaquero
authors.forename: Dong-Wei
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: García-Villaba
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bacharach
authors.forename: Henry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Vanbrocklin
authors.forename: Qizhi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Desco
authors.forename: Randall
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dae
mesh_terms: D000641:Ammonia; D000818:Animals; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D009590:Nitrogen Radioisotopes; D010477:Perfusion; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013194:Staining and Labeling
chemical_list: D009590:Nitrogen Radioisotopes; D000641:Ammonia