Partition of thallium-201 in isolated myocardial tissue of rats previously injected at rest or after exercise.

The kinetics and distribution of TI-201 in isolated myocardial tissue of rats injected i.v. with this radionuclide are compared at rest and after exercise (2 hr of forced swimming). At 1/2 and 3 hr after injection, a myocardial segment was obtained and subjected to continuous washout with the radioactivity remaining in the tissue recorded each 10 sec for 1 hr. Altogether there were four groups of ten animals each. A three-compartment model (extracellular, main intracellular, and subcellular) was found to describe adequately the kinetics of TI-201. In the groups studied 1/2 hr after TI-201 injection the most dramatic effect of exercise was a translocation of TI-201 into the subcellular compartment. The change was also present but less marked in samples from exercised rats obtained 3 hr after TI-201 injection, which suggests a transition to the resting stage. The findings suggest the possibility of structural subcellular differences in myocardial uptake for TI-201 in clinical images visualized after exercise and at rest.