[68Ga]-albumin-PET in the monitoring of left ventricular function in murine models of ischemic and dilated cardiomyopathy: Comparison with cardiac MRI

Purpose The purpose of this study is to evaluate left ventricular functional parameters in healthy mice and in different murine models of cardiomyopathy with the novel blood pool (BP) positron emission tomography (PET) tracer [ 68 Ga]-albumin. Procedures ECG-gated microPET examinations were obtained in healthy mice, and mice with dilative (DCM) and ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) using the novel BP tracer [ 68 Ga]-albumin (Alb BP ), as well as [ 18 F]-FDG microPET. Cine-magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination performed on a clinical 1.5-T MRI provided the reference standard measurements. Results When considering the combined group of healthy controls, DCM and ICM BP -PET significantly overestimated the magnitudes of EDV ( BP , 181 ± 86 μl; cine-MRI, 125 ± 80 μl; P  BP , 136 ± 92 μl; cine-MRI, 96 ± 77 μl; P  BP , 31 ± 16 %; cine-MRI, 33 ± 21 %; P = 0.910) matched closely to cine-MRI results, as did findings with [ 18 F]-FDG. High correlations were found between the measured cardiac parameters (EDV: R = 0.978, ESV: R = 0.989, and LVEF: R = 0.992). Conclusions Measuring left ventricular function in mice with [ 68 Ga]-albumin BP PET is feasible and showed a high correlation compared to cine-MRI, which was used as a reference standard.