A study of the acute effect of smoking on cerebral blood flow using 99mTc-ECD SPET

Cigarette smoking is known to be associated with atherosclerosis, is an important risk factor for stroke and has other serious effects. The aim of this study was to evaluate the acute effect of cigarette smoking on cerebral blood flow using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Ten healthy volunteers with a smoking habit were studied using technetium-99m-labelled ethylcysteinate dimer single-photon emission tomography (SPET). We evaluated the regional cerebral blood flow under the smoking and resting states. The regional cerebral blood flow on smoking-activated SPET was significantly decreased in the whole brain as compared with that on resting SPET. Our findings therefore suggest that one of the acute effects of cigarette smoking is to induce a diffuse decrease in cerebral blood flow.