A potential key role for radionuclide imaging in the prediction and prevention of sudden arrhythmic cardiac death.

Despite enormous progress over the past few decades in reducing deaths from cardiovascular disease, the ability to identify patients at risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD) remains a challenge. SCD accounts for about 350,000 deaths annually in the United States (1). Most SCDs are from ventricular arrhythmias—ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation (VT/VF)— and the means to effectively identify patients before such an event, although improving, are still limited. The question is whether a simple, noninvasive test such as radionuclide imaging with