First experiences with dynamic renal [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTA PET/CT: a comparison to renal scintigraphy and compartmental modelling to non-invasively estimate the glomerular filtration rate

PURPOSE: The determination of the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) is decisive for a variety of clinical issues, for example, to monitor the renal function in radionuclide therapy patients. Renal scintigraphy using glomerularly filtered tracers allows combined acquisition of renograms and GFR estimation but requires repeated blood sampling for several hours. In contrast, dynamic PET imaging using the glomerularly filtered tracer [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTA bears the potential to non-invasively estimate the GFR by compartmental kinetic modelling. Here, we report the, to our knowledge, first comparison of human renal dynamic [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTA PET imaging in comparison to renal scintigraphy and compare PET-derived to serum creatinine-derived GFR measurements. METHODS: Dynamic [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTA PET data were acquired for 30 min immediately after tracer injection in 12 patients. PET and renal scintigraphy images were visually interpreted in a consensus read by three nuclear medicine physicians. The functional renal cortex was segmented to obtain time-activity curves. The arterial input function was estimated from the PET signal in the abdominal aorta. Single-compartmental tracer kinetic modelling was performed to calculate the GFR using complete 30-min (GFR(PET-30)) and reduced 15-min PET data sets (GFR(PET-15)) to evaluate whether a shorter acquisition time is sufficient for an accurate GFR estimation. A modified approach excluding minutes 2 to 10 was applied to reduce urinary spill-over effects. Serum creatinine-derived GFR(CKD) (CKD-EPI-formula) was used as reference standard. RESULTS: PET image interpretation revealed the same findings as conventional scintigraphy (2/12 patients with both- and 1/12 patients with right-sided urinary obstruction). Model fit functions were substantially improved for the modified approach to exclude spill-over. Depending on the modelling approach, GFR(CKD) and both GFR(PET-30) and GFR(PET-15) were well correlated with interclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) from 0.74 to 0.80 and Pearson’s correlation coefficients (PCCs) from 0.74 to 0.81. For a subgroup of patients with undisturbed urinary efflux (n = 9), correlations were good to excellent (ICCs from 0.82 to 0.95 and PCCs from 0.83 to 0.95). Overall, GFR(PET-30) and GFR(PET-15) were excellently correlated (ICCs from 0.96 to 0.99 and PCCs from 0.96 to 0.99). CONCLUSION: Renal [(68)Ga]Ga-DOTA PET can be a suitable alternative to conventional scintigraphy. Visual assessment of PET images and conventional renograms revealed comparable results. GFR values derived by non-invasive single-compartmental-modelling of PET data show a good correlation to serum creatinine-derived GFR values. In patients with undisturbed urinary efflux, the correlation was excellent. Dynamic PET data acquisition for 15 min is sufficient for visual evaluation and GFR derivation. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00259-022-05781-1.