[Simple kinetic analysis of 99mTc-GSA by direct integral linear least square regression method: calculation of hepatic blood flow and receptor index based on three-compartment model].

To obtain both hepatic blood flow and an index of asialoglycoprotein receptor amount by simple calculation in the asialoglycoprotein receptor imaging with 99mTc-DTPA-Galactosyl Human Serum Albumin (99mTc-GSA), we have tested the applicability of the direct integral linear least square regression (DILS) method based on a linear 3-compartment model (Bronqvist, 1984) to the kinetic analysis of 99mTc-GSA scintigraphy. DILS method can provide hepatic blood flow (k1) and the product of receptor amount and forward binding rate constant (k1k3/k2) as a receptor index, without requiring iterative calculation and initial estimates of the parameters. To compare DILS method with nonlinear least square regression (NLS) method as a standard, data from 35 patients with liver dysfunction were analyzed by both methods. The effect of the data noise to parameter estimate were simulated, and both DILS and NLS method could provide reliable parameter estimate which is relatively insensitive to the data noise. In estimated model parameters, both hepatic blood flow (k1) and the receptor index (k1k3/k2) showed significant correlation between 2 methods (r2 = 0.96, p < 0.0001; r2 = 0.99, p < 0.0001, respectively). We concluded that DILS method was comparable to NLS method in determination of the model parameters and could be useful in the asialoglycoprotein receptor imaging.