Cardiac PET imaging: Principles and new developments

Abstract

A growing interest in cardiac physiology, disease, and treatment has fuelled the development of cardiac PET applications both for research and clinical use. Imaging of the heart poses unique challenges, including the presence of cardiac, respiratory, and organ motions and complex anatomy. As with other organs, common challenges include physiologic interactions from the systematic level down to the molecular level and a broad range of diseases. Since cardiology includes mechanical, electrical, blood flow, metabolic, neurohormonal, immunological, and genetic aspects, cardiac imaging is a broad field with a wide range of tracers and applications designed to probe all of these mechanisms. This chapter provides an overview of existing applications and recent developments of cardiac PET imaging.