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The authors have developed a technique to estimate input functions from a population-based arterial blood curve in positron emission tomography (PET) studies with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG). A standardized pump injection was used in 34 subjects. A population-based blood curve was generated based on the first 10 subjects. In the remaining 24 subjects, an estimated input function (EIFa) was obtained by scaling the population-based curve with two arterial blood samples, one obtained at 10 minutes and the other at 45. Time integrals for EIFa and the real arterial input function (RIF) were in excellent agreement (r = .998, P < .0001). Cerebral metabolic rates for glucose calculated with EIFa and RIF and the autoradiographic method also correlated excellently (r = .992, P < .0001). Analogous correlations were achieved with arterialized venous samples as scaling factors. These results suggest that individually scaled, population-derived input functions may serve as an adequate alternative to continuous arterial blood sampling in quantitative FDG-PET imaging.
Takikawa et al. (1993) studied this question.