Automatic preparation of radiopharmacokinetic data for in vivo estimation of receptor biochemistry.
UNLABELLED: We present a fully automated region of interest (ROI) and motion correction program for the generation of heart and liver time-activity data resulting from a hepatic functional imaging study using [99mTc-]galactosyl-neoglycoalbumin (99mTc-NGA). METHODS: The program automatically draws heart and liver ROI and corrects for lateral movement of the subject. Eighty-four 99mTc-NGA studies, consisting of 32 healthy subjects and 52 patients with liver disease, were processed and submitted to an automated kinetic analysis that estimates the subject's asialoglycoprotein receptor concentration [R]o. RESULTS: When compared to time-activity data generated by operator-drawn ROIs without motion correction, the average reduced Chi-square of the kinetic analysis decreased significantly (p < 0.001) from 2.20 to 1.37 and the number of studies that satisfied quality control increased from 74 to 81 studies. Receiver operating characteristic of [R]o resulted in greater detectability (0.984 +/- 0.012 compared with 0.965 +/- 0.020) when automatic ROI generation was employed. Using the test criteria of 0.65 microM, the sensitivity of [R]o increased from 0.88 to 0.92 and the specificity increased from 0.96 to 0.97. CONCLUSION: Automated definition of liver and heart ROIs with motion correction, that reduces observational noise, increased the success rate of the radiopharmacokinetic analysis from 88% to 96%.