Abstract
Evaluation of cerebrovascular hemodynamics in patients with cerebral vascular disease (CVD) is important especially when they receive neurosurgical treatment. PET measurements of cerebral blood flow (CBF) and metabolism using 15O-tracers and 18F-fluorodeoxy glucose (FDG) have been a basic and standard method to evaluate hemodynamics and energy metabolism in the brain since development of quantitative analyses in early 1980’s. Recent development of PET/CT scanners, as well as PET/MR scanners, provides high quality images and reliable quantitative values not only for cancer studies, but also for brain imaging. Advancement of computational technology enables application of various new models for quantitative measurement of CBF and other PET parameters. PET tracers also showed substantial advancement owing to the recent development of molecular imaging technique. Ligands for receptors and transporters are good examples, which can be applied now to dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging with SPECT for clinical diagnosis of Parkinsonism. Amyloid-β imaging available recently is also a good example of the clinical application of molecular imaging. In this article, the history of PET measurement of cerebral perfusion and metabolism is reviewed, and applications of molecular imaging methods for clinical studies are overviewed.
