Positron imaging in ischemic stroke disease

Abstract

Positron emission tomography (PET) is well suited to the study of ischemic stroke disease. It has the potential to help elucidate pathophysiological mechanisms, differentiate viable from nonviable tissue, and provide a more rational basis for developing specific therapies for ischemic lesions. The different tracer strategies that may be applied to the study of ischemic disease, however, all have relative limitations, which may be related to the physical or biological determinants of the tracer distributions, to the tracer half‐lives, or to the methods required for quantitation of the data. Determination of blood flow and oxygen metabolism are useful for characterizing stroke lesions, but oth..