Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of image resolution on (a) relative and absolute values of caudate glucose consumption (rCMRGIc) determined by positron emission tomography (PET), and (b) the detection of significant differences in these metabolic values between groups of subjects. For this purpose, raw data of cerebral accumulation of fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) obtained in 11 normal subjects and in nine patients with unilateral thalamic infarction were reconstructed using filtered backprojection with four different cut-off frequencies (CFs), yielding images with a transaxial resolution of 5.7, 7.1, 8.9 and 11 mm (full-width at half-maximum; FWHM). Absolute values of caudate rCMRGIc decreased significantly by more than 30% over the range of image resolutions studied. Bilateral ratios of caudate rCMRGIc were insensitive to variations in image resolution. Levels of significance assessing the differences in mean metabolic values between patients and controls were all below 0.01. They were, however, slightly better at image resolutions of 7.1 and 8.9 mm than at a resolution of 5.7 mm. These data indicate (a) that relative values of rCMRGIc are better suited to compare quantitative results from different PET cameras than are absolute values, and (b) that the CF used for the filtered back-projection exerts a small but not negligible influence on levels of significance assessing differences in metabolic values between groups of subjects.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Rottenberg DA. General introduction to the proceedings of the PET data analysis workshop, New York, 1–2 May 1989. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 1991;11:A1-A2
Kuwert T, Sures T, Herzog H, Loken M, Hennerici M, Langen K-J, Feinendegen LE. On the influence of spatial resolution and of the size and form of regions of interest on the measurement of regional cerebral metabolic rates by positron emission tomography. J Neural Transm 1992;37 Suppl:53–66
Kuwert T, Ganslandt T, Jansen P, Jülicher F, Lange H, Herzog H, Scholz D, Aulich A, Feinendegen LE. Influence of size of regions of interest on PET evaluation of caudate glucose consumption. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1992;16:789–794
Kuwert T, Hennerici M, Langen K-J, Aulich A, Herzog H, Sitzer M, Feinendegen LE. Regional cerebral glucose consumption measured by positron emission tomography in patients with unilateral thalamic infarction. Cerebrovasc Dis 1991;1:327–336
Kuwert T, Lange HW, Langen K-J, Herzog H, Aulich A, Feinendegen LE. Cortical and subcortical glucose consumption ceasured by PET in patients with Huntington's disease. Brain 1990:113:1405–1423
Kuwert T, Hefter H, Scholz D, Milz M, Weiß P, Arendt G, Herzog H, Loken M, Hennerici M, Feinendegen LE. Regional cerebral glucose consumption measured by positron emission tomography in patients with Wilson's disease. Eur J Nucl Med 1992;19:96–101
Reivich M, Alavi A, Wolff A, Fowler J, Russell J, Arnett C, MacGregor RR, Shine CY, Atkins H, Anand A, Dann R, Greenberg JH. Glucose metabolic rate kinetic model parameter determination in humans: the lumped constants and rate constants for [18F] fluorodeoxyglucose and [11C] deoxyglucose. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 1985;5:179–192
Huang S-C, Phelps ME, Hoffman EJ, Sideris K, Selin CJ, Kuhl DE. Noninvasive determination of local cerebral metabolic rate of glucose in man. Am J Physiol 1980;238:E69–82
Rota Kops E, Herzog H, Schmid A, Holte S, Feinendegen LE. Performance characteristics of an eight-ring whole-body PET scanner. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1990;14:437–445
Herzog H, Rota Kops E, Schmid A, Feinendegen LE. A consideration of the effects of differing design parameters in PET system on the accuracy of radioactivity quantitation in vivo. Med Prog Techn 1991;17:193–198
Talairach J, Tournoux P. Co-planar stereotaxic imaging atlas of the human brain, 3-dimensional proportional system: an approach to cerebral imaging. Stuttgart New York: Georg Thieme, 1988
Bortz J. Lehrbuch der Statistik für Sozialwissenschaftler. Berlin: Springer, 1985
Laplane D, Levasseur M, Pillon B, Dubois B, Baulac M, Mazoyer B, Tran Dinh S, Sette G, Danze F, Baron JC. Obsessive-compulsive and other behavioural changes with bilateral basal ganglia lesions: a neuropsychological, magnetic resonance imaging and positron tomography study. Brain 1989;112:699–725
Eriksson L, Herzog H, Nordström A.-L. Quantitation problems in positron emission tomography (PET) as applied to the kinetic analysis of the striatum dopamine data. In: Baron JC, Comar D, Farde L, Martinot JL, Mazoyer B, eds. Brain dopaminergic systems: imaging with positron tomography. Dordrecht Boston London: Kluwer Academic; 1991:53–64
Hoffmann EJ, Huang S-C, Phelps ME. Quantitation in positron emission computed tomography. I. Effect of object size. J Comput Assist Tomogr 1979;3:299–308
Grady CL, Berg G, Carson RE, Daube-Witherspoon ME, Friedland RP, Rapoport SI. Quantitative comparison of cerebral glucose metabolic rates from two positron emission tomographs. J Nucl Med 1989;30:1386–1392
Strother SC, Liow J-S, Moeller JR, Sidtis JJ, Dhawan VJ, Rottenberg DA. Absolute quantitation in neurological PET. Do we need it? Cereb Blood Flow Metab 1991;11:A3-A16.
Moeller JH, Strother SC, Sidtis JJ, Rottenberg DA. The scaled subprofile model: a statistical approach to the analysis of functional patterns in positron emission tomographic data. J Cereb Blood Flow Metab 1987;7:649–658
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kuwert, T., Sures, T., Herzog, H. et al. The influence of image resolution on the positron emission tomographic measurement of caudate glucose consumption. Eur J Nucl Med 20, 753–758 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00180904
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00180904