Kinetics of rubidium-82 after coronary occlusion and reperfusion. Assessment of patency and viability in open-chested dogs.

Currently available noninvasive techniques are unable to rapidly assess artery patency and tissue viability during acute myocardial infarction. In prior studies, rubidium-82 (Rb-82), a short-lived positron emitter obtained from a generator, was validated as an indicator of flow with a model that included the rate constants for transfer into and out of the cell. Accordingly, in the current study, 20 open-chested dogs with experimental infarction were studied serially at base line, after coronary occlusion, and at reperfusion. Time-activity curves acquired with beta probes on the epicardial surface were used to measure flow and net transfer of rubidium. Flow decreased to 0.41 +/- 0.08 ml/min per gram during occlusion and increased to 2.73 +/- 0.56 ml/min per gram in potentially viable ischemic tissue, whereas flows were 0.32 +/- 0.08 during occlusion (P less than 0.05 vs. viable) and 1.58 ml/min per gram (P less than 0.002 vs. viable) in irreversibly injured tissue. The transfer rate constant for Rb-82, kT, at base line was +1.22 +/- 0.60 X 10(-3) s-1 and did not change significantly during occlusion in viable vs. nonviable samples (+1.41 +/- 1.27 vs. +0.93 +/- 1.51 X 10(-3) s-1, respectively), except that 4 out of 11 nonviable tissue samples had negative kTs. At reperfusion, viable myocardial samples were all positive (+1.26 +/- 1.58 X 10(-3) s-1), whereas all irreversibly injured tissues had a negative kT, indicating leakage of tracer (-1.50 +/- 1.10 X 10(-3) s-1, P less than 0.001). This study suggests that Rb-82 time-activity curves can be useful to determine patency of an infarct related artery and potential viability after reperfusion during myocardial infarction.