Improvement in PET myocardial perfusion image quality and quantification with flurpiridaz F 18.

Rubidium-82 ((82)Rb), the currently commercially available radiotracer for positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), has led to wide availability of PET-MPI for stress-rest imaging. Compared to SPECT MPI, myocardial perfusion PET images have higher spatial and contrast resolution, are less affected by radiotracer scatter, benefit from more precise attenuation correction, and allow dynamic first pass imaging. In addition, PET imaging allows assessment of myocardial function at peak stress and measurement of absolute myocardial blood flow, thus providing critical data not available with SPECT imaging. Further enhancements of the high quality of PET perfusion images may be realized by technologies under development such as respiratory gating, combined respiratory, and ECG gating to generate "motion-frozen" cardiac images, automated patient motion correction software, and high-definition PET, which reduces distortions introduced by the circular geometry of the scanner. Early studies indicate that the experimental PET radiopharmaceutical flurpiridaz F 18 provides high-quality, high-resolution myocardial perfusion images that may enable improved clinical MPI, and has properties well suited to optimized performance by application of these quantitative analytic technologies.