BACKGROUND: Respiratory motion due to breathing during cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) results in spatial blurring and erroneous tracer quantification. Respiratory gating might represent a solution by dividing the PET coincidence dataset into smaller respiratory phase subsets. The aim of our study was to compare the resulting imaging quality by the use of a time-based respiratory gating system in two groups administered either adenosine or dipyridamole as the pharmacological stress agent.

METHODS AND RESULTS: Forty-eight patients were randomized to adenosine or dipyridamole cardiac stress (82)RB-PET. Respiratory rates and depths were measured by a respiratory gating system in addition to registering actual respiratory rates. Patients undergoing adenosine stress showed a decrease in measured respiratory rate from initial to later scan phase measurements [12.4 (±5.7) vs 5.6 (±4.7) min(-1), P < .001] and tended to have a lower frequency of successful respiratory gating compared to dipyridamole (47% vs 71%, P = .12). As a result, imaging quality was superior in the dipyridamole group compared to adenosine.

CONCLUSIONS: If respiratory gating is considered for use in cardiac PET, a dipyridamole stress protocol is recommended as it, compared to adenosine, causes a more uniform respiration and results in a higher frequency of successful respiratory gating and thereby superior imaging quality.