(Stroke. 1999;30:1616-1620.)
© 1999 American Heart Association, Inc.
Original Contributions |
From the Departments of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine (H. Ito, T.K., H. Iida) and Internal Medicine (Y.T.), Akita Research Institute of Brain and Blood Vessels, Akita, Japan, and the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine (I.Y.), Tokyo, Japan.
Correspondence and reprint requests to Hiroshi Ito, MD, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Akita Research Institute of Brain and Blood Vessels, 6-10 Senshu-kubota-machi, Akita City, Akita 010-0874, Japan. E-mail hito{at}akita-noken.go.jp
| Abstract |
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MethodsIn each of 13 healthy subjects, CBF was measured using 15O-labeled water and PET at rest and during hypercapnia, hypocapnia, and dipyridamole stress; corresponding CBF values were then compared.
ResultsCBF values during dipyridamole stress were significantly lower than those measured at rest. The dipyridamole stress PaCO2 was also significantly lower than the resting PaCO2. The change in CBF during dipyridamole stress relative to PaCO2 closely followed the relationship between CBF and PaCO2 during hypocapnia.
ConclusionsThese results indicate that the observed decrease in CBF during dipyridamole stress was caused by a decrease in PaCO2 rather than by any direct action of dipyridamole on CBF. The decrease in PaCO2 during dipyridamole stress was most likely due to hyperventilation, which was a side effect of adenosine. These results support the hypothesis that circulating adenosine is largely prevented from binding to adenosine receptors of cerebral vessels by the blood-brain barrier.
Key Words: carbon dioxide cerebral blood flow dipyridamole tomography, emission computed
| Introduction |
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Several reports have investigated the effects of intravenous dipyridamole on CBF in animals and largely have been unable to demonstrate any change in CBF after intravenous infusion of dipyridamole in dogs or cats.16 17 18 19 However, 1 study did observe increased CBF in rabbits after administration of dipyridamole.16 No increase in global CBF as measured by positron emission tomography (PET) was observed after intravenous adenosine in a limited number of human subjects.20 On the other hand, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with 99mTc-hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime (99mTc-HMPAO) could demonstrate increased side-to-side asymmetry in occlusive carotid artery disease after intravenous dipyridamole or adenosine administration, claiming the usefulness of intravenous infusion of dipyridamole or adenosine for estimation of cerebral perfusion reserve.21 22 However, the groups did not measure CBF quantitatively, but only estimated relative distribution of brain 99mTc-HMPAO uptake. In addition, there have been no reports as to the CBF response to dipyridamole with relationship to the change of PaCO2 in humans.
To address some of these conflicting findings, in this study we quantitatively measured CBF after intravenous dipyridamole in 13 healthy subjects with use of 15O-labeled water (H215O) and PET. The dipyridamole stress CBF values were directly compared with corresponding CBF measurements at rest and during hypercapnia and hypocapnia.
| Subjects and Methods |
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PET Procedure
The Headtome V dual PET (Shimadzu Corp) used for all studies
provides 47 sections with center to center distances of 3.125
mm.23 The intrinsic spatial resolution was 4.0 mm
in-plane and 4.3 mm full width at half maximum (FWHM) axially.
Reconstruction with a Butterworth filter resulted in a final in-plane
resolution of approximately 8 mm FWHM.
The dual PET system allowed simultaneous brain and heart studies to be performed for all studies.24 After 1 minute of continuous inhalation of C15O gas (approximately 5 GBq total supplied to the mouth), a 4-minute static scan was performed and 3 arterial blood samples were taken. The C15O PET data in the heart were used to derive the arterial input function for the brain study.25 After the transmission scan, H215O PET studies were performed at rest and during hypercapnia, hypocapnia, and dipyridamole stress. The interval between H215O PET studies was at least 15 minutes. The scanning protocol consisted of a 180-second static scan of the brain and a 360-second dynamic scan of the heart after continuous intravenous infusion of H215O over 2 minutes. The dose of radioactivity was 1.1 to 1.4 GBq at the time the scanning started. CBF was estimated with the dual PET system, as previously described.24 Using the arterial input function derived from the left ventricular time-activity curve measured by the PET camera ring positioned over the heart,25 the CBF images were calculated from the brain PET camera data by the autoradiographic method.26 27
Forced hypercapnia was induced by inhalation of 7% CO2 gas, starting 1 minute before the beginning of the scan and continuing until the end of scan. Forced hypocapnia was induced by hyperventilation using same schedule as hypercapnia.28 Dipyridamole (0.56 mg/kg body weight) was intravenously administered over 4 minutes from 8 minutes before the beginning of scan.3 Three arterial blood samples were taken during each H215O PET scan to measure PaCO2. Blood pressure and heart rate were monitored during each scan. A head fixation system with individual molds for each subject was used to minimize head movement over the period of the PET measurements. The order of the H215O PET studies was rest, hypercapnia, hypocapnia, and dipyridamole in 7 subjects and rest, hypocapnia, hypercapnia, and dipyridamole stress conditions in the other 6 subjects.
Data Analysis
Region of interest for inside brain contour was drawn on a slice
of CBF image, which was at the basal ganglia level. Mean CBF value in a
region of interest was calculated and used for following
analyses.
The vascular response to a change in
PaCO2 was calculated as the percent
change of CBF per absolute change of
PaCO2 (mm Hg) in response to
hypercapnia, hypocapnia, and dipyridamole,
as follows28 :
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| Results |
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The CBF values during rest, hypercapnia, hypocapnia, and
dipyridamole stress and the vascular response to
PaCO2 change are given in Table 2
. CBF values for
dipyridamole stress were significantly lower than those
at rest. There was no significant difference in vascular response to
PaCO2 between
dipyridamole stress and hypocapnia.
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The percent CBF change in response to hypercapnia,
hypocapnia, and dipyridamole stress are
plotted versus the absolute change of
PaCO2 for all subjects in Figure 1
. There was close agreement between the
hypocapnia and dipyridamole stress
regression lines, and no significant difference in regression slopes or
intercepts was observed.
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Typical CBF images for the rest, hypercapnia, hypocapnia,
and dipyridamole stress conditions are shown in Figure 2
. This figure also indicates that the
observed CBF changes were global rather than regional.
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| Discussion |
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Human cerebral vessels have A2 adenosine
receptors.30 The stimulation of these
A2 receptors causes the relaxation of vascular
smooth muscle,30 31 and this plays a role in the
regulation of CBF.31 However, we did not observe an
increase in CBF after intravenous infusion of
dipyridamole in this study (Table 2
and Figure 2
). The transport of adenosine through the blood-brain
barrier has been investigated,32 33 34 and it has been
reported that circulating adenosine was unable to cross the
blood-brain barrier.34 Thus, circulating adenosine
is unlikely to cause cerebral vasodilation due to its inability to bind
to A2 adenosine receptors of cerebral
vessels. Although it is unknown whether intravenous
dipyridamole is transferred across the blood-brain
barrier to increase the concentration of interstitial
adenosine in humans, it has been reported35 that
dipyridamole could not be transferred across the blood
brain barrier in rat and mouse, which further supports our
findings.
The cerebrovascular accidents during dipyridamole
stress tests have been reported and have been attributed to
intracranial vascular steal phenomenon.14 15 However,
because intravenous dipyridamole does not
increase the CBF (Table 2
and Figure 2
), the intracranial
vascular steal phenomenon cannot occur. On the contrary, CBF was
reduced during dipyridamole stress due to a decrease in
PaCO2 caused by
adenosine-induced hyperventilation.29 Recently,
posthyperventilatory steal response in chronic cerebral
hemodynamic stress has been reported.36 If
severe hypocapnia is caused by intravenous
dipyridamole, a regional cerebral perfusion
disturbance might be caused. In addition, it has been
reported11 12 that coronary atheroscrelosis is an
important potential risk factor for cerebrovascular diseases. In
dipyridamole stress testing to estimate
coronary flow reserve, such complications should thus be
considered.
SPECT studies with 99mTc-HMPAO have shown an increased side-to-side asymmetry in occlusive carotid artery disease following intravenous dipyridamole or adenosine administration,21 22 and it was concluded that dipyridamole or adenosine was a cerebral vasodilator and was useful for estimating cerebral perfusion reserve. However, in the present study, intravenous dipyridamole decreased global CBF due to a decrease in PaCO2 attributed to the hyperventilation caused by adenosine.29 99mTc-HMPAO suffers from back-diffusion from the brain to the blood, and its first-pass extraction fraction from the blood to the brain is limited. This causes a nonlinear relationship between radioactivity in the brain and CBF37 38 39 and underestimation of CBF in regions with high flow, while good linearity is observed in low CBF regions. Accordingly, a decrease in global CBF should improve the contrast in 99mTc-HMPAO SPECT uptake between regions with different CBF values. Thus, the increase of side-to-side asymmetry in occlusive carotid artery disease introduced by intravenous dipyridamole is likely due to the observed decrease in global CBF and hence a shift toward the more linear uptake region of 99mTc-HMPAO.
The inhalation of CO2 gas has been widely used
for estimation of cerebral perfusion reserve.28 In the
present study, hypercapnia increased global CBF by 8±5%
(mean±SD) per unit PaCO2 change
(mm Hg) in healthy subjects (Table 2
). Large interindividual
variation of vascular response to hypercapnia was observed even in
healthy subjects. On the other hand, the hypocapnia induced
by hyperventilation decreased global CBF by 3±1% per unit
PaCO2 change, and the degree of this
response was smaller than that for the hypercapnia (Table 2
).
These results are in good agreement with previous
reports.40 41 42
In conclusion, dipyridamole decreased CBF due to a decrease in PaCO2 caused by adenosine-induced hyperventilation and did not directly change CBF, despite being a potent coronary vasodilator. Because severe hypocapnia might cause a regional cerebral perfusion disturbance, such side effects during dipyridamole stress tests to estimate coronary flow reserve should be considered.
| Acknowledgments |
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Received April 7, 1999; revision received May 20, 1999; accepted May 20, 1999.
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