Prasad V S V Neti1, Roger W Howell. 1. Division of Radiation Research, Department of Radiology, New Jersey Medical School, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey 07103, USA.
Abstract
UNLABELLED: Recently, the distribution of radioactivity among a population of cells labeled with 210Po was shown to be well described by a lognormal (LN) distribution function (J Nucl Med. 2006;47:1049-1058) with the aid of autoradiography. To ascertain the influence of Poisson statistics on the interpretation of the autoradiographic data, the present work reports on a detailed statistical analysis of these earlier data. METHODS: The measured distributions of alpha-particle tracks per cell were subjected to statistical tests with Poisson, LN, and Poisson-lognormal (P-LN) models. RESULTS: The LN distribution function best describes the distribution of radioactivity among cell populations exposed to 0.52 and 3.8 kBq/mL of 210Po-citrate. When cells were exposed to 67 kBq/mL, the P-LN distribution function gave a better fit; however, the underlying activity distribution remained lognormal. CONCLUSION: The present analysis generally provides further support for the use of LN distributions to describe the cellular uptake of radioactivity. Care should be exercised when analyzing autoradiographic data on activity distributions to ensure that Poisson processes do not distort the underlying LN distribution.
UNLABELLED: Recently, the distribution of radioactivity among a population of cells labeled with 210Po was shown to be well described by a lognormal (LN) distribution function (J Nucl Med. 2006;47:1049-1058) with the aid of autoradiography. To ascertain the influence of Poisson statistics on the interpretation of the autoradiographic data, the present work reports on a detailed statistical analysis of these earlier data. METHODS: The measured distributions of alpha-particle tracks per cell were subjected to statistical tests with Poisson, LN, and Poisson-lognormal (P-LN) models. RESULTS: The LN distribution function best describes the distribution of radioactivity among cell populations exposed to 0.52 and 3.8 kBq/mL of 210Po-citrate. When cells were exposed to 67 kBq/mL, the P-LN distribution function gave a better fit; however, the underlying activity distribution remained lognormal. CONCLUSION: The present analysis generally provides further support for the use of LN distributions to describe the cellular uptake of radioactivity. Care should be exercised when analyzing autoradiographic data on activity distributions to ensure that Poisson processes do not distort the underlying LN distribution.
Authors: Ase M Ballangrud; Wei-Hong Yang; Stig Palm; Richard Enmon; Paul E Borchardt; Virginia A Pellegrini; Michael R McDevitt; David A Scheinberg; George Sgouros Journal: Clin Cancer Res Date: 2004-07-01 Impact factor: 12.531