We developed an intra-arterial positron-probe (beta(+)-probe) system to measure the arterial time-activity concentration in humans for quantitative compartmental modeling of positron emission tomography studies. Performance was characterized in vitro, by using a uniform phantom to calculate dead time, linearity, and absolute detector sensitivity. In vitro evaluations in a uniform phantom showed a system dead time of 2.5 micros, linear regression between measured and true count rates with R(2)=0.999, and detector sensitivity of 6.9-7.0 counts/s kBq(-1) ml. These met or exceeded values of previously reported systems.