An in vivo technique was developed for measuring the absolute myocardial blood flow with H2`50 and dynamic positron-emission tomography. This technique was based on a new model involving the concept of the tissue fraction, which was defined as the fraction of the tissue mass in the volume of the region of interest. The myocardium was imaged dynamically by positron-emission tomography, starting at the time of intravenous bolus injection of 1212O. The arterial input function was measured continuously with a beta-ray detector. A separate image after C`50 inhalation was also obtained for correction of the H2"5O radioactivity in the blood.The absolute myocardial blood flow and the tissue fraction were calculated for 15 subjects with a kinetic technique under region-of-interest analysis. These results seem consistent with their coronary angiographic findings. The mean value of the measured absolute myocardial blood flows in normal subjects was 0.95 0.09 ml/min/g. This technique detected a diffuse decrease of myocardial blood flow in patients with triple-vessel disease. (Circulation 1988;78:104-115) W ith the use of suitable tracers and appropriate mathematical models, positronemission tomography (PET) has the capability ofproviding noninvasive quantitative measurements of physiological functions in organs. However, in the field of cardiac PET, relatively few measurements have been made of the absolute value of the myocardial blood flow (MBF) and metabolism.1,2 The main reason for this concerns the so-called partial volume effect (PVE), 1-6 that is, the spillover effect in radioactivity measurement due to the relatively thin-walled myocardium compared with the spatial resolution of PET,7 and the wall motion of the myocardium. The PVE problem