Cardiac Assessment with PET.

ABSTRACT

Positron emission tomography (PET) has been very well validated for assessing myocardial viability, and emerging sophisticated hybrid imaging technologies involving PET with other imaging modalities offer tremendous promise for delivering an in-depth but noninvasive evaluation of cardiac perfusion and function in various pathologic conditions during a single imaging session. Moreover, several new PET radiotracers in the research and preclinical arena are poised to enter the clinical setting in the foreseeable future. With such exciting developments on the horizon, cardiac PET and PET/computed tomography imaging, and potentially integrated cardiac PET/magnetic resonance imaging have become the focus of the molecular imaging paradigm for comprehensive cardiovascular assessment.