Non-Invasive Measurement of Oxygen Metabolism. Part 2: New Techniques in PET and MRI

Abstract

Oxygen metabolism is a key factor in the life of a living organism. The article is the second part of a review of methods for measuring oxygen metabolism.Purpose. The aim of this review is to provide an insight into newly developed perfusion measurement techniques based on MRI and CT comparing their accuracy with the “gold standard” H215O PET measurements and describing their role in today’s clinical practice.Materials and methods. More than 200 Pubmed publications were analyzed for the keywords “perfusion, MRI, CT, ASL, oxygen metabolism”. Relevant publications that do not contain these keywords or contain them in a different wording were also studied.Results. This review selected 49 publications describing CT and MR perfusion using contrast agents and MR ASL perfusion. Examples of the use of the described methods in fundamental research and applied medicine are given.Conclusion. The quantitative results obtained using novel non-invasive molecular imaging techniques are in most cases comparable to H215O PET data, which opens the way for broad use of MRI and CT perfusion and oxygen metabolism measurements in clinical practice.