Quantification of intramyocardial blood volume with 99mTc-RBC SPECT-CT imaging: A preclinical study

BackgroundCurrently, there is no established non-invasive imaging approach to directly evaluate myocardial microcirculatory function in order to diagnose microvascular disease independent of co-existing epicardial disease. In this work, we developed a methodological framework for quantification of intramyocardial blood volume (IMBV) as a novel index of microcirculatory function with SPECT/CT imaging of Tc-99m-labeled red blood cells (RBCs).MethodsDual-gated myocardial SPECT/CT equilibrium imaging of Tc-99m-RBCs was performed on twelve canines under resting conditions. Five correction schemes were studied: cardiac gating with no other corrections (CG), CG with attenuation correction (CG+AC), CG+AC with scatter correction (CG+AC+SC), dual cardiorespiratory gating with AC+SC (DG+AC+SC), and DG+AC+SC with partial volume correction (DG+AC+SC+PVC). Quantification of IMBV using each approach was evaluated in comparison to those obtained from all corrections. The in vivo SPECT estimates of IMBV values were validated against those obtained from ex vivo microCT imaging of the casted hearts.ResultsThe estimated IMBV with all corrections was 0.150.03 for the end-diastolic phase and 0.11 +/- 0.03 for the end-systolic phase. The cycle-dependent change in IMBV (IMBV) with all corrections was 23.9 +/- 8.6%. Schemes that applied no correction or partial correction resulted in significant over-estimation of IMBV and significant under-underestimation of IMBV. Estimates of IMBV and IMBV using all corrections were consistent with values reported in the literature using invasive techniques. In vivo SPECT estimates of IMBV strongly correlated (R(2)0.70) with ex vivo measures for the various correction schemes, while the fully corrected scheme yielded the smallest bias.Conclusions Non-invasive quantification of IMBV is feasible using Tc-99m-RBCs SPECT/CT imaging, however, requires full compensation of physical degradation factors.