Mass dose effects and in vivo affinity in brain PET receptor studies — a study of cerebral 5-HT4 receptor binding with [11C]SB207145

Attention to tracer dose principles is crucial in positron emission tomography (PET), and deviations can induce serious errors. In this study, we devise a method for determining receptor occupancy of the mass dose of the radioligand itself and the in vivo affinity.MethodsThe approach was used for [11C]SB207145, a new PET radioligand for imaging the cerebral 5-HT4 receptors in humans. Test–retest PET studies with varying specific activities of [11C]SB207145 were conducted in seven healthy subjects, and the output parameter regional BPND was modeled. Individual occupancy plots were first computed to estimate the mass dose that saturates 50% of receptors (ID50), and subsequently, the maximal mass dose that can be injected (arbitrarily set at an occupancy <5%) was calculated. Scatchard plots were computed to estimate the in vivo KD.ResultsIncreasing the mass dose resulted in a decrease in BPND, whilst the relative cerebellar uptake was unchanged. The ID50 was 85.4±30.2 μg, and the upper mass dose limit was 4.5±1.6 μg, which does not require ultrahigh specific activity. The estimated in vivo KD was 2.8 nM (range 1.0–4.8), without any regional differences.ConclusionThe presented method for estimating the upper mass dose limit is suggested as part of validation of PET radioligands.