Impact of tissue transport on PET hypoxia quantification in pancreatic tumours.

Hypoxia-sensitive PET tracers are slow to reach diffusive equilibrium in a substantial fraction of pancreatic tumours, confounding quantification of hypoxia using both static (TBR) and dynamic (k 3) PET imaging. TBR is reduced by distribution volume effects and k 3 is enhanced by slow equilibration. We proposed a novel model to quantify tissue transport properties and hypoxia-sensitive tracer binding in order to improve the sensitivity of hypoxia-PET imaging.