Impact of time-of-flight on qualitative and quantitative analyses of myocardial perfusion PET studies using (13)N-ammonia

BACKGROUND: The impact of time-of-flight (TOF) in myocardial perfusion (13)N-ammonia positron emission tomography (PET) is unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS: Twenty consecutive subjects underwent rest and adenosine stress (13)N-ammonia myocardial perfusion PET. Two sets of images were reconstructed using TOF-ordered subset expectation maximization (TOF-OSEM) and 3-dimensional row-action maximum likelihood algorithm (3D-RAMLA). Qualitative and quantitative analyses from the TOF-OSEM and 3D-RAMLA reconstructions were compared. Count profile curves revealed that TOF relatively increased the uptake of (13)N-ammonia at the lateral walls, and apical thinning was emphasized on the TOF images. Both segmental rest and stress myocardial blood flow (MBF) values were higher with TOF-OSEM use than with 3D-RAMLA use (rest MBF: 0.955 ± 0.201 vs 0.836 ± 0.185, P < .001; stress MBF: 2.149 ± 0.697 vs 2.058 ± 0.721, P < .001). The differentiation of MBF between reconstructions was more enhanced under rest conditions. Thus, segmental myocardial flow reserve (MFR) observed using TOF-OSEM reconstruction was lower than that observed using 3D-RAMLA (2.25 ± 0.57 vs 2.46 ± 0.75, P < .001). No remarkable differences were observed between segmental and territorial results. CONCLUSIONS: TOF increased lateral wall counts and emphasized apical thinning. Quantitatively, TOF reconstruction showed increased MBF, especially under relatively low perfusion conditions.