Kinetic analysis of rubidium and thallium as deposited myocardial blood flow tracers in isolated rabbit heart. Marshall, Robert C., Scott E. Taylor, Patricia Powers-Risius, Bryan W. Reutter, Alvin Kuruc, Pamela G. Coxson, Ronald H. Huesman, and Thomas F. Budinger. E. O. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Center for Functional Imaging, Berkeley, California 94720, Martinez Veterans Administration, Northern California System of Outpatient Clinics, Martinez, California 94553
APStracts 3:0459H, 1996.
Evaluation of myocardial perfusion with tracers such as thallium and rubidium is based on the assumption that tissue tracer content is proportional to flow. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between flow and tissue tracer content of thallium-201 and rubidium-83 in the isolated perfused rabbit heart. Rubidium-83 (86 d half-life) , an isotope that is not used clinically, was used as a subsitute for rubidium-82 (76 s half-life) in order to improve the ac curacy and precision of data a cquisition. The multiple indicator dilution technique was employed with two independent computational approaches. The first approach explicitly deconvolved thallium-201 and rubidium-83 venous concentration curves by the intravascular reference tracer curve. The second approach used a conventional analysis. Both approaches showed that there was more early washout of rubidium-83 than thallium-201 and that the heart retained thallium-201 better than rubidium-83 within 2 min after isotope introduction. These data indicate that thallium-201 is a better perfusion tracer than rubidium-83 in the isolated rabbit heart.

Received 9 April 1996; accepted in final form 11 September 1996.
APS Manuscript Number H313-6.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 5 November 1996