Quantification of leg muscle perfusion using thallium-201 single photon emission computed tomography.

The purpose of this study is to quantify leg muscle perfusion with 201Tl single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Six normal controls and 21 patients with peripheral arterial disease underwent this examination. Thallium-201 leg SPECT of both stress and redistribution was performed using a dual-headed digital gamma camera. Each slice of transverse images was normalized with pixels and whole-body counts. In normal controls, the activity of posterior tibial muscle components was significantly higher than that of anterior tibial muscle components (p less than 0.001). In 14 components, where patients had insignificant lesions, profile curves were normal in 10 (71%). In 62 components, where patients had arteriographically significant lesions, stress profile curves were abnormal in 57 (92%) compared with normal controls. Approximately, in half (28/62) components which had significant lesions, profile curves showed redistribution after 3 hr compared with normal redistribution curves. In three patients who underwent successful bypass graftings, the activity of each muscle component returned to a normal range.