# Single-tracer Multiparametric PET Imaging

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS · 2022 · $618,342

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Blood flow and cellular metabolism are two basic but vital physiological processes that are often dysregulated
in major diseases. Imaging of flow-metabolism mismatch or coupling is of broad clinical and research
significance in many diseases, for instance, in ischemic cardiomyopathy for assessing myocardial viability, in
cancer for grading tumor aggressiveness, and in neurodegenerative diseases for studying brain function. A
major challenge in PET imaging of flow-metabolism is that scanning for these two processes requires two
different radiotracers–18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) for metabolism and a second flow radiotracer for
perfusion imaging. While FDG is widely available in the clinic for metabolic imaging, perfusion imaging by PET
is clinically limited, resulting in underutilization of flow-metabolism imaging in both research and clinics. The
goal of this project is to develop a single-tracer multiparametric PET imaging solution for simultaneous flow-
metabolism imaging using only 18F-FDG without the need for a second flow-specific radiotracer. Early attempts
from others and our group have used FDG blood-to-tissue delivery rate (K1) as a proxy of blood flow. However,
the accuracy of FDG K1 approximating blood flow largely depends on the FDG extraction fraction in tissues
and is also compromised by the correlation between FDG K1 and blood glucose levels. Our preliminary work
has tackled these problems specifically in the myocardium and demonstrated the feasibility of using FDG for
measuring myocardial blood flow. The focus of this proposal is to extend the effort to a large study and to the
whole body, and further develop the enabling techniques to improve FDG blood flow quantification. We will (1)
develop glucose-normalized extraction fraction correction for FDG blood flow quantification in various organs
using total-body dynamic PET; (2) develop high-temporal resolution kinetic modeling for improved FDG blood
flow quantification; (3) improve FDG blood flow imaging on short PET scanners using advanced image
reconstruction. Successful completion of this project will develop a new technical capability of 18F-FDG for
simultaneous multiparametric imaging of blood flow and glucose metabolism with reduced radiation dose,
imaging time and cost. This would also open up many new opportunities for clinical applications that require
multiparametric imaging biomarkers but have been historically restricted by the accessibility of perfusion
imaging, thus making a broad impact in multiple PET applications for patient clinical care and research.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10504089
- **Project number:** 1R01EB033435-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT DAVIS
- **Principal Investigator:** Guobao Wang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $618,342
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-19 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10504089

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10504089, Single-tracer Multiparametric PET Imaging (1R01EB033435-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10504089. Licensed CC0.

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