Quantitative assessment of ventilation-perfusion relationships with gallium-68 positron emission tomography/computed tomography imaging in lung cancer patients

Zhuorui Li; Pierre-Yves Le Roux; Jason Callahan; Nicholas Hardcastle; Michael S Hofman; Shankar Siva; Tokihiro Yamamoto

doi:10.1016/j.phro.2022.03.005

Quantitative assessment of ventilation-perfusion relationships with gallium-68 positron emission tomography/computed tomography imaging in lung cancer patients

Phys Imaging Radiat Oncol. 2022 Apr 11:22:8-12. doi: 10.1016/j.phro.2022.03.005. eCollection 2022 Apr.

Authors

Zhuorui Li¹, Pierre-Yves Le Roux², Jason Callahan³, Nicholas Hardcastle^{4

5}, Michael S Hofman^{4

5}, Shankar Siva^{5

6}, Tokihiro Yamamoto⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
² Department of Nuclear Medicine, Brest University Hospital, EA3878 (GETBO), Brest, France.
³ Molecular Imaging and Therapeutic Nuclear Medicine, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
⁴ Department of Physical Sciences, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
⁵ Sir Peter MacCallum Department of Oncology, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia.
⁶ Department of Radiation Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia.
⁷ Department of Radiation Oncology, University of California Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA, USA.

Abstract

Pulmonary functional imaging has demonstrated potential to improve thoracic radiotherapy. The purpose of this study was twofold: 1) to quantify ventilation/perfusion relationships in lung cancer patients using a new functional imaging approach, gallium-68 (⁶⁸Ga)-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT); and 2) to compare ventilation/perfusion matching with diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (D_LCO). Voxel-wise correlations between ventilation and perfusion varied widely among 19 patients (range: 0.26-0.88). ⁶⁸Ga-PET/CT-measured percent gas exchanging lung volume was moderately correlated with D_LCO (≤0.59). Our findings suggested that ⁶⁸Ga-PET/CT ventilation/perfusion imaging provided complementary information and a reasonable surrogate for gas exchange in lung cancer patients.

Keywords: Lung cancer; Lung function; Positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT); Ventilation/perfusion.