Existing investigations about the precision of radioluminography (RLG) are
restricted to descriptive analysis of the tissue samples. The aim of the pr
esent experiments was to obtain a general prospective statement about the p
recision that the RLG; method can achieve. Several pharmaceutical companies
in Europe participated in the experiments. Albino rats of various strains
were dosed with various C-14-labeled compounds. Whole-body sections were pr
oduced, and blood calibration scales were set up with standard radioactivit
y sources of dog or rat blood. Photostimulated luminescence was detected us
ing Fuji imaging plate BAS-III, For each organ separately, variability was
investigated on each of the levels: rat, section of rat, region within sect
ion, and residual, with the help of variance components. The producing comp
any was seen as a fixed factor and adjusted for. A mixed linear model was f
itted to the log-transformed data. The variance component (SD estimate) for
the residual term gave the desired prospective statement about the achieva
ble precision of the RLG method. Exponential back transformation from the l
ogarithmic to the natural scale transformed the SD estimates to multiplicat
ion factors. in total, 29 organs were investigated. The RLG method was comp
arable in precision to the dissection/combustion method. (C) 2000 Academic
Press.