The increasing implementation of standardisation techniques in brain research and clinical diagnosis has highlighted the importance of reliable baseline data from normal control subjects for inter-subject analysis. In this context, knowledge of the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) distribution in normal ageing is a factor of the utmost importance. In the present study, rCBF was investigated in 50 healthy volunteers (25 men, 25 women), aged 31-78 years, who were examined at rest by means of single-photon emission tomography (SPET) using technetium-99m d, l-hexamethylpropylene amine oxime (HMPAO). After normalising the CBF data, 27 left and 27 right volumes of interest (VOIs) were selected and automatically outlined by standardisation software (computerised brain atlas). The heavy load of flow data thus obtained was reduced in number and grouped in factors by means of principal component analysis (PCA). PCA extracted 12 components explaining 81% of the variance and including the vast majority of cortical and subcortical regions. Analysis of variance and regression analyses were performed for rCBF, age and gender before PCA was applied and subsequently for each single extracted factor. There was a significantly higher CBF on the right side than on the left side ( P<0.001). In the overall analysis, a significant decrease was found in CBF ( P=0.05) with increasing age, and this decrease was particularly evident in the left hemisphere ( P=0.006). When gender was specifically analysed, CBF was found to decrease significantly with increasing age in females ( P=0.037) but not in males. Furthermore, a significant decrease in rCBF with increasing age was found in the brain vertex ( P=0.05), left frontotemporal cortex ( P=0.012) and temporocingulate cortex ( P=0.003). By contrast, relative rCBF in central structures increased with age ( P=0.001). The ability of standardisation software and PCA to identify functionally connected brain regions might contribute to a better understanding of the relationships between rCBF at rest, anatomically defined brain structures, ageing and gender.

Specific biological markers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have not yet been established. Functional studies have shown abnormalities in the anatomo-functional connectivity of the limbic-striatal "social" brain. This study aimed to investigate regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) at rest. Thirteen patients with ASD of normal intelligence and ten IQ-, sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HC) underwent PET/CT using [1-(11)C]butanol, a perfusion tracer. As compared to HC, ASD showed significant CBF increases in the right parahippocampal, posterior cingulate, primary visual and temporal cortex, putamen, caudatus, substantia nigra and cerebellum. No statistically significant correlation between CBF and IQ was found. The limbic, posterior associative and cerebellar cortices showed increased blood flow in ASD, confirming previous findings about the neurobiology of ASD.

Through the use of an aerosol with specific size characteristics, it may be possible to optimize the distribution of a fluid in the respiratory tract and achieve a more homogenous humidification. It is recommended to replicate the study using 25 subjects. Relevance to clinical practice. Direct instillation of saline should not be used with mechanical ventilation.

With Na(18)F PET/CT, it was possible to confirm regional bone turnover as a means of visualizing bone remodeling without the interference of artifacts from the Taylor spatial frame. Furthermore, dynamic list-mode acquisition allowed different sequences to be performed, enabling, for example, visualization of tracer transport from blood to the fracture site.

Objective: SUVmax is often calculated at FDG PET examinations in systematic studies as well as at clinical examinations. Since SUVmax represents a very small portion of a lesion it may be questioned how statistically reliable the figure is. This was studied by assessing the repeatability of SUVmax between two FDG acquisitions acquired immediately upon each other in patients with chest lesions.Methods: In 100 clinical patients with a known chest lesion, two identical 3 min PET registrations (PET1 and PET2, respectively) were initiated within 224±31 sec of each other. The difference in SUVmax between the lesion for the two PET scans (ΔSUVmax) was calculated and the uncertainty expressed as the coefficient of variation, CV (%). The correlation between ΔSUVmax and the lowest SUVmax from PET1 or PET2, the approximate metabolic lesion volume, the time from FDG injection to PET1 and the time between PET1 and PET2, respectively, was also assessed.Results: In 56 patients SUVmax increased at the second acquisition and in 44 patients it decreased. Mean of SUVmax was 7.8±6.1 and 7.8±6.2 for PET1 and PET2, respectively. The mean percentage difference was 0.9±7.8. The difference was not significant (p=0.20). CV gave an uncertainty of 4.3% between the two measurements which is a strong indicator of equivalence. There was no correlation between ΔSUVmax and any of the assessed four parameters. The difference between the acquisitions, 0.9%, was much lower compared to the 3 previous published similar, but more restricted studies where the difference was 2.5-8.2%.Conclusion: From camera and computational perspectives, SUVmax is a stable parameterConflict of interest:None declared.