PET/CT in cardiology
The high incidence of cardiovascular disease and the resultant morbidity associated with the sequelae of acute cardiovascular events continue to be major issues of medical concern. To assist in the clinical evaluation of patients with known or suspected cardiovascular disease, several methodologies of investigation have been developed to detect the presence of disease and to provide an assessment for prognosis, effects of therapy, and risk stratification of patients. These diagnostic modalities include exercise and/or pharmacologic stress testing, nuclear cardiac imaging, echocardiography, cardiac catheterization/coronary angiography, and magnetic resonance imaging. These patients frequently require an anatomic, physiologic, and functional assessment of their cardiovascular status to determine optimal clinical management. Nuclear cardiac imaging techniques lend themselves more to physiologic and functional assessments. Techniques used in nuclear cardiology can be broadly divided into those that rely on standard single photon emitting radiopharmaceuticals (e.g. multigated blood pool imaging, first pass radionuclide ventriculography, and planar and/or single photon emission computed tomographic (SPECT) myocardial perfusion and metabolic imaging) and those that rely on positron emitting radiopharmaceuticals (e.g. rubidium-82, nitrogen-13 ammonia, and oxygen-15 water for myocardial perfusion imaging and 18F fluorodeoxyglucose for metabolic imaging).
