Local Interrelationships of Cerebral Oxygen Consumption and Glucose Utilization in Normal Subjects and in Ischemic Stroke Patients: A Positron Tomography Study

Abstract

With the use of positron emission tomography (PET) and the 15O steady-state-[18F]fluorodeoxyglucose combined method, the local interrelationships between the cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen (CMRO2) and the cerebral metabolic rate for glucose (CMRGlc) were investigated in control subjects and in stroke patients. In addition to the classic in vivo autoradiographic approach, a kinetic method was used to measure CMRGlc because it was expected to be more reliable in cerebral ischemia. In control subjects local coupling between CBF, CMRO2, and CMRGlc was confirmed, and acceptable values for the CMRO2/CMRGlc ratio were found; the latter, however, was lower in white matter than in gray. Uncoupling between CMRO2 and CMRGlc was observed in all stroke patients, suggesting that (1) enhanced anaerobic glycolysis occurred both in reperfused recent infarcts and in chronically ischemic tissue, and (2) substrates other than blood-borne glucose were being oxidized at the borders of recent infarcts. However, methodological uncertainties presently make such observations only tentative. Finally, a coupled depression of CMRO2 and CMRGlc was found in the contralateral cerebellum.