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PURPOSE: Functional imaging is becoming increasingly important for the detection of neurodegenerative disorders. Perfusion MRI with arterial spin labeling (ASL) has been reported to provide promising diagnostic possibilities but is not yet widely used in routine clinical work. The aim of this study was to compare, in a clinical setting, the visual assessment of subtracted ASL CBF maps with and without additional smoothing, to FDG-PET data.

METHODS: Ten patients with a clinical diagnosis of dementia and 11 age-matched cognitively healthy controls were examined with pseudo-continuous ASL (pCASL) and 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET). Three diagnostic physicians visually assessed the pCASL maps after subtraction only, and after postprocessing using Gaussian smoothing and GLM-based beta estimate functions. The assessment scores were compared to FDG PET values. Furthermore, the ability to discriminate patients from healthy elderly controls was assessed.

RESULTS: Smoothing improved the correlation between visually assessed regional ASL perfusion scores and the FDG PET SUV-r values from the corresponding regions. However, subtracted pCASL maps discriminated patients from healthy controls better than smoothed maps. Smoothing increased the number of false-positive patient identifications. Application of beta estimate functions had only a marginal effect.

CONCLUSION: Spatial smoothing of ASL images increased false positive results in the discrimination of hypoperfusion conditions from healthy elderly. It also decreased interreader agreement. However, regional characterization and subjective perception of image quality was improved.

The dosage of 18F-FDG must be sufficient to ensure adequate PET image quality. For younger patients and research controls, the lowest possible radiation dose should be used. The purpose of this study was to find a protocol for FDG-PET of the brain with reduced radiation dose and preserved quantitative characteristics. Eight patients with neurodegenerative disorders and nine controls (n=17) underwent FDG-PET/CT twice on separate occasions, first with normal-dose (3 MBq/kg), and second with low-dose (0.75 MBq/kg, 25% of the original). Five additional controls (total n=22) underwent FDG-PET twice, using normal-dose and ultra-low-dose (0.3 MBq/kg, 10% of original). All subjects underwent MRI. Ten-minute summation images were spatially normalized and intensity normalized. Regional standard uptake value ratios (SUV-r) were calculated using an automated atlas. SUV-r values from the normal- and low-dose images were compared pairwise. No clinically significant bias was found in any of the three groups. The mean absolute difference in regional SUV-r values was 0.015 (1.32%) in controls and 0.019 (1.67%) in patients. The ultra-low-dose protocol produced a slightly higher mean difference of 0.023 (2.10%). The main conclusion is that 0.75 MBq/kg (56 MBq for a 75-kg subject) is a sufficient FDG dose for evaluating regional SUV-ratios in brain PET scans in adults with or without neurodegenerative disease, resulting in a reduction of total PET/CT effective dose from 4.54 to 1.15 mSv. The ultra-low-dose (0.5 mSv) could be useful in research studies requiring serial PET in healthy controls or children.