Cardiac positron emission tomography. A report for health professionals from the Committee on Advanced Cardiac Imaging and Technology of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, American Heart Association.

T his statement of the Committee on Advanced Cardiac Imaging and Technology of the Council on Clinical Cardiology addresses the use of positron emission tomography (PET) as a clinical tool for the diagnosis and management of patients with coronary artery disease. Over the past decade PET technology has evolved to the point that clinical PET studies can be performed safely and efficiently in the evaluation of patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease. Two specific uses of PET in management of coronary artery disease have been proposed: 1) noninvasive detection of coronary artery disease and estimation of its severity and 2) assessment of myocardial viability in patients with coronary artery disease and left ventricular dysfunction. The diagnostic use of PET would apply to a large number of patients, whereas its use to assess myocardial viability would apply to a smaller, more select number of patients. As of February 1991, the available data that have emerged from the few centers with sufficient experience in cardiac PET indicate that this promising and advanced imaging modality can often provide accurate information in both of these clinical situations. PET allows more sensitive data acquisition than single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). In addition, coincidence detection provides a means of measuring tissue photon attenuation for subsequent correction of emission data. In clinical practice, such attenuation correction results in improved delineation of regional tracer concentration compared with current SPECT methods. Present-generation whole-body PET scanners provide multislice capabilities (up to 31 tomographic levels simultaneously) with an in-plane