Assessment of early phase ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET as an alternative method of FDG PET for voxel based statistical analysis: Application for parkinson's disease rat model

¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET image was useful for diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Although spatial normalization step is necessary in SPM analysis, it was difficult to apply the spatial normalization on ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET due to the lack of reference for spatial normalization. Therefore, additional data acquisition such as MRI or FDG PET scans is needed. In this study, we developed the voxel based statistical analysis method for ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET using early phase of ¹⁸F-FP-CIT. ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET data was acquired from 7 normal and 1 PD model rat brain. Emission PET data was collected for 1 h at the start of 1 mCi of ¹⁸F-FP-CIT. We used the early phase uptake image (from 0 to 1200 s) including perfusion phase as referential information for spatial normalization. Additionally, ¹⁸F-FDG PET was acquired as referential data to validate the substitution of ¹⁸F-FP-CIT. To validate early phase ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET data for spatial normalization, correlation coefficient between early phase ¹⁸F-FP-CIT and ¹⁸F-FDG were assessed. Using our proposed method, SPM for ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET was successfully implemented. Early phase ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET corresponding early phase and ¹⁸F-FDG PET were highly correlated. When we applied our developed method for the comparison between normal and PD, we can identify the difference of ¹⁸F-FP-CIT between the normal and PD in the striatum $(P<0.005, {\rm K}>0)$. The SPM method for ¹⁸F-FP-CIT PET data could provide high localization accuracy in PD analysis. This method may be useful for assessment of PD.