What nuclear cardiology can learn from nuclear oncology

Ismet Sarikaya, Steven M. Larson, Alvin Freiman, H. William Strauss
Review Articles
Volume 10, Issue 3 / May , 2003

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Conclusion

Combining PET and CT imaging technology to determine regional myocardial perfusion, perfusion reserve, ventricular function, coronary angiographic results, coronary calcification, and coronary artery inflammation offers an opportunity to bring together a constellation of important measurements to characterize coronary heart disease. These images can be recorded in an outpatient environment, providing information that can be added to data available from blood tests of inflammation, such as high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, and patient performance on exercise testing. Addition of the focal assessment of coronary vascular inflammation should provide a key assessment, identifying coronary lesions at high risk of rupture or erosion. These considerations suggest that applying the technology now used in nuclear oncology offers great potential for nuclear cardiology.

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