Combining CT and nuclear: a winning hybrid team

Excerpt

An important aspect in the management of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) is consideration of the duality of morphology and function.1 Hence, a comprehensive assessment of CAD should include both information on coronary lesion morphology and myocardial perfusion, and ideally both should be obtained noninvasively to allow for optimal clinical decision making and reduce the risk inherent in invasive diagnostic procedures. While perfusion imaging has been feasible by noninvasive means using myocardial perfusion scintigraphy for more than 3 decades, the concept of noninvasive coronary angiography has only recently gained clinical acceptance by the introduction of multislice computed tomography (MSCT). The newer generation CT scanners have finally met temporal and spatial resolution requirements for clinical use and have provided the base for combination with complementary modalities into hybrid imaging. …