Simultaneous cardiac output and regional myocardial perfusion determination with PET and nitrogen 13 ammonia

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the possibility of measuring cardiac output during positron emission tomography (PET) examination of myocardial perfusion with nitrogen 13 ammonia. METHODS AND RESULTS: In 7 patients undergoing right-sided cardiac catheterization for evaluation of heart failure and 6 patients who had undergone heart transplantation, a thermodilution catheter for continuous measurement of cardiac output was inserted. An N-13 ammonia scan of the heart was subsequently performed, and with use of factor analysis, the time-activity curve from the right ventricle was derived from the dynamic image sequence. The PET-derived cardiac output was subsequently obtained according to the Stewart-Hamilton principle as the amount of injected tracer divided by the area under the time-activity curve. PET-acquired cardiac output measurements correlated closely with the invasively determined values for a wide range of cardiac output values (P < .0001). The mean difference was 0.12 L/min, with an SD of 0.74 L/min. The interobserver variation was low, with a mean difference of 0.06 L/min and an SD of 0.46 L/min. CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac output determination with N-13 ammonia and PET appears to be both accurate and precise and can be performed simultaneously with measurement of myocardial perfusion.