Assessment of endothelial function and myocardial flow reserve using ¹⁵O-water PET without attenuation correction

Myocardial blood flow (MBF) measurement using positron emission tomography (PET) from the washout rate of ¹⁵O-water is theoretically independent of tissue attenuation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of not using attenuation correction in the assessment of coronary endothelial function and myocardial flow reserve (MFR) using ¹⁵O-water PET. We retrospectively processed 70 consecutive ¹⁵O-water PET examinations obtained at rest and during cold pressor testing (CPT) in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (n = 58), or at rest and during adenosine infusion in heart transplant recipients (n = 12). Data were reconstructed with attenuation correction (AC) and without attenuation correction (NAC) using filtered backprojection, and MBF was quantified using a single compartmental model. The agreement between AC and NAC data was assessed using Lin's concordance correlation coefficient followed by Bland-Altman plot analysis. Regarding endothelial function, NAC PET showed poor reproducibility and poor agreement with AC PET data. Conversely, NAC PET demonstrated high reproducibility and a strong agreement with AC PET for the assessment of MFR. Non-attenuation-corrected ¹⁵O-water PET provided an accurate measurement of MFR compared to attenuation-corrected PET. However, non-attenuation-corrected PET data were less effective for the assessment of endothelial function using CPT in this population. (orig.)