Cadmium Telluride 133Xe Clearance Detector for Muscle Blood Flow Studies

In the past, muscle blood flow in man has been measured from the clearance rate of 133Xe using NaI (Tl) detectors. Such measurements may be better performed, especially during patient exercise, by using recently produced CdTe semiconductor detectors and miniature preamplifiers in a small, 10 gram package. This package has high sensitivity, is extremely compact, and can operate efficiently at body temperature and in unusual environments. Preliminary measurements of blood flow in various muscles of resting and exercising individuals both at steady state and during transients yielded values of the same order as obtained by others using the same techniques with NaI (Tl) or by different methods. Broader clinical studies are now planned to exploit the increased ability of this CdTe system to study muscles over long periods of activity.