PET kinetic modeling of 11C-acetate from projections.

Positron emission tomography (PET) image reconstruction techniques inevitably introduce inaccuracies in images. To avoid these inaccuracies in PET kinetic modeling, kinetic parameters can directly be obtained from the projections. The present work describes modeling 11C-acetate in the sinograms measured in normal and ischemic rats with the Sherbrooke small animal PET scanner. Each bin of the dynamic sinograms was decomposed in its basis functions using spectral analysis technique in conjunction with the 11C-acetate kinetic model. Homogeneous structures were clearly separated and reconstructed as well as the kinetic model parameters. Rate constants were well correlated to those obtained by means of curve fitting from images.