Published in:
01-02-2015 | Editorial
Dynamic SPECT: evolution of a widely available tool for the assessment of coronary flow reserve
Authors:
Simona Ben-Haim, Denis Agostini
Published in:
European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
|
Issue 2/2015
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Excerpt
Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) SPECT is well established in the diagnosis, monitoring response to treatment and risk stratification in patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). PET enables quantitative assessment of myocardial blood flow (MBF, in millilitres per gram per minute) and coronary flow reserve (CFR), and quantification with
15O-water,
13N-ammonia and recently
82Rb has been validated over a wide range of blood flows in animal models and humans [
1‐
4]. Quantitative assessment of MBF has been shown to improve the diagnostic accuracy of conventional MPI with SPECT or PET, to improve cardiac risk assessment and to predict outcome [
5‐
7]. Quantitation of MBF enables absolute assessment of myocardial flow and vasodilator reserve without the assumption of a normal reference region [
8]. Therefore, the limitation of conventional MPI (underestimation of the extent and severity of multivessel CAD, when tracer uptake in the best-perfused myocardial region does not represent normally perfused myocardium) can be overcome by the use of absolute quantitation [
9]. …