title: Quantification of rat brain SPECT with (123)I-ioflupane: evaluation of different reconstruction methods and image degradation compensations using Monte Carlo simulation.
abstract: SPECT studies with (123)I-ioflupane facilitate the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD). The effect on quantification of image degradations has been extensively evaluated in human studies but their impact on studies of experimental PD models is still unclear. The aim of this work was to assess the effect of compensating for the degrading phenomena on the quantification of small animal SPECT studies using (123)I-ioflupane. This assessment enabled us to evaluate the feasibility of quantitatively detecting small pathological changes using different reconstruction methods and levels of compensation for the image degrading phenomena. Monte Carlo simulated studies of a rat phantom were reconstructed and quantified. Compensations for point spread function (PSF), scattering, attenuation and partial volume effect were progressively included in the quantification protocol. A linear relationship was found between calculated and simulated specific uptake ratio (SUR) in all cases. In order to significantly distinguish disease stages, noise-reduction during the reconstruction process was the most relevant factor, followed by PSF compensation. The smallest detectable SUR interval was determined by biological variability rather than by image degradations or coregistration errors. The quantification methods that gave the best results allowed us to distinguish PD stages with SUR values that are as close as 0.5 using groups of six rats to represent each stage.
authors: Unitat de Biofísica i Bioenginyeria, Universitat de Barcelona, Casanova 143, 08036 Barcelona, Spain. Unidad de Imagen, CIMES, Fundación General de la Universidad de Málaga, Marqués de Beccaria 3, 29010, Málaga, Spain.
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Roé-Vellvé
authors: F
authors: F
authors: Pino
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Falcon
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Cot
authors: J D
authors: JD
authors: Gispert
authors: C
authors: C
authors: Marin
authors: J
authors: J
authors: Pavía
authors: D
authors: D
authors: Ros
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D009662:Nortropanes; D051381:Rats; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
chemical_list: D009662:Nortropanes; C519528:ioflupane