title: Multisoftware reproducibility study of stress and rest myocardial blood flow assessed with 3D dynamic PET/CT and a 1-tissue-compartment model of 82Rb kinetics.
abstract: Routine quantification of myocardial blood flow (MBF) requires robust and reproducible processing of dynamic image series. The goal of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility of 3 highly automated software programs commonly used for absolute MBF and flow reserve (stress/rest MBF) assessment with (82)Rb PET imaging.
  
  
  METHODS
  Dynamic rest and stress (82)Rb PET scans were selected in 30 sequential patient studies performed at 3 separate institutions using 3 different 3-dimensional PET/CT scanners. All 90 scans were processed with 3 different MBF quantification programs, using the same 1-tissue-compartment model. Global (left ventricle) and regional (left anterior descending, left circumflex, and right coronary arteries) MBF and flow reserve were compared among programs using correlation and Bland-Altman analyses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All scans were processed successfully by the 3 programs, with minimal operator interactions. Global and regional correlations of MBF and flow reserve all had an R(2) of at least 0.92. There was no significant difference in flow values at rest (P = 0.68), stress (P = 0.14), or reserve (P = 0.35) among the 3 programs. Bland-Altman coefficients of reproducibility (1.96 × SD) averaged 0.26 for MBF and 0.29 for flow reserve differences among programs. Average pairwise differences were all less than 10%, indicating good reproducibility for MBF quantification. Global and regional SD from the line of perfect agreement averaged 0.15 and 0.17 mL/min/g, respectively, for MBF, compared with 0.22 and 0.26, respectively, for flow reserve.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The 1-tissue-compartment model of (82)Rb tracer kinetics is a reproducible method for quantification of MBF and flow reserve with 3-dimensional PET/CT imaging.
authors: University of Ottawa Heart Institute, National Cardiac PET Centre, Ottawa, Canada. RAdeKemp@ottawaheart.ca
authors: Robert A
authors: RA
authors: Dekemp
authors: Jerome
authors: J
authors: Declerck
authors: Ran
authors: R
authors: Klein
authors: Xiao-Bo
authors: XB
authors: Pan
authors: Ryo
authors: R
authors: Nakazato
authors: Christine
authors: C
authors: Tonge
authors: Parthiban
authors: P
authors: Arumugam
authors: Daniel S
authors: DS
authors: Berman
authors: Guido
authors: G
authors: Germano
authors: Rob S
authors: RS
authors: Beanlands
authors: Piotr J
authors: PJ
authors: Slomka
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D007700:Kinetics; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012146:Rest; D012414:Rubidium Radioisotopes / Q000378:metabolism*; D012984:Software; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D012414:Rubidium Radioisotopes