Glucose Metabolism Evaluation by using cardiac PET images

Quantitative analysis of PET images is a clinical common practice. It is used to estimate the input function of 18F-FDG tracer in order to study a physiological process and to evaluate the response to a treatment. It allows the evaluation of coronary artery pathologies, as well as metabolic syndrome associated to cardiovascular diseases. We propose a method for analyzing the dynamic PET cardiac images aiming to assess the progress of glucose metabolism on large vessels as the aorta one. The aim is to study the relation among drug dosage with metabolic syndrome. Indeed, the aim is to correlate the glucose metabolism values (specifically MRGlu - Glucose Metabolic Rate) quantified in the aorta and in the left ventricle, by using PET dynamic images. The measures are presented and proposed for clinical drug validations.