Research Progress and Clinical Application of Cardiac Positron Emission Tomography Perfusion Tracers

Since the worldwide popularization of positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/CT，myocardial perfusion PET tracers have been gathering more and more attention. Currently, three tracers are used for the assessment of myocardial perfusion with cardiac PET: ⁸²Rb, 13NH₃ and H₂¹⁵O. However, their usage is limited by a short physical half-life (t_1/2<10 min)，and requires onsite generator or cyclotron. Therefore, new myocardial perfusion PET tracers labeled with ¹⁸F are becoming a hot research topic due to its sufficient half-life. Presently, several ¹⁸F labelled compounds designed to target mitochondrial complex I (MC-I) have been reported in myocardial perfusion assessing. Most of them showed great myocardial extraction, good linearity of uptake versus flow, and excellent retention in the myocardium for the desired imaging window in vitro and vivo. Among them, ¹⁸F-BMS747158-02 was the most promising one with rapid kinetics, uniform myocardial distribution, and favorable organ biodistribution. It has the potential of becoming an ideal tracer for cardiac positron emission tomographic imaging.