OBJECTIVE By targeting somatostatin receptors (sst) radiopeptides have been established for both diagnosis and therapy. For physiologically normal human tissues the study provides a normative database of maximum standardized uptake value (SUV(max)) and sst mRNA. METHODS A total of 120 patients were subjected to diagnostic (68)Ga-DOTATOC positron emission tomography (PET)/CT (age range 19-83 years). SUV(max) values were measured in physiologically normal tissues defined by normal morphology, absence of surgical intervention and absence of metastatic spread during clinical follow-up. Expression of sst subtypes (sst1-sst5) was measured independently in pooled adult normal human tissue by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). RESULTS SUV(max) revealed a region-specific pattern (e.g., mean ± SD, spleen 31.1 ± 10.9, kidney 16.9 ± 5.3, liver 12.8 ± 3.6, stomach 7.0 ± 3.1, head of pancreas 6.2 ± 2.3, small bowel 4.8 ± 1.8, thyroid 4.7 ± 2.2, bone 3.9 ± 1.3, large bowel 2.9 ± 0.8, muscle 2.1 ± 0.5, parotid gland 1.9 ± 0.6, axillary lymph node 0.8 ± 0.3 and lung 0.7 ± 0.3). SUV(max) was age independent. Gender differences were evident within the thyroid (female/male: 3.7 ± 1.6/5.5 ± 2.4, p < 0.001; Mann-Whitney U test) and the pancreatic head (5.5 ± 1.9/6.9 ± 2.2, p < 0.001). The sst mRNA was widely expressed and heterogeneous, showing sst1 to be most abundant. SUV(max) values exclusively correlated with sst2 expression (r = 0.846, p < 0.001; Spearman rank correlation analysis), whereas there was no correlation of SUV(max) with the expression of the other four subtypes. CONCLUSIONS In normal human tissues (68)Ga-DOTATOC imaging has been related to the expression of sst2 at the level of mRNA. The novel normative database may improve diagnostics, monitoring and therapy of sst-expressing tumours or inflammation on a molecular basis.