BACKGROUND It is unclear how amiodarone therapy exerts its effects on left ventricular remodeling and cardiac sympathetic nerve function in chronic heart failure. We investigated long-term effects of amiodarone on rat dilated cardiomyopathy after healing of cardiac myosin-induced autoimmune myocarditis. METHODS AND RESULTS Rats were treated with oral amiodarone or vehicle for 6 weeks. We dete...

T1 scintigraphic abnormalities have been reported in patients with an implanted permanent pacemaker, but little is known about the MIBG scintigraphic findings in such patients. This study was performed to assess the MIBG scintigraphic findings in patients with an implanted permanent pacemaker, and to test the hypothesis that imaging characteristics of MIBG scintigraphy differ according to its m...

CONTEXT Pheochromocytomas are rare tumors of predominantly adrenal origin that often produce and secrete catecholamines. Malignancy occurs in a variable percentage of cases depending on genetic background and tumor location. Definitive diagnosis relies on the detection of distant metastases. Treatments for malignant pheochromocytoma include surgical debulking, pharmacological control of hormone...

High-risk and refractory neuroblastomas carry poor overall survival, novel approaches must be explored to improve global outcome. With better knowledge of underlying molecular patterns growing radioligand portfolio, nuclear medicine physicians can test new strategies for disease assessment therapy. For decades, meta-iodobenzylguanidine (mIBG) has been used evaluate extent when coupled with iodi...

AIMS To assess changes in cardiac adrenergic activity with cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), and to investigate whether these changes are related to improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). METHODS AND RESULTS Sixteen patients (13 males, age 66 +/- 7 years) were studied at baseline and after > or =6 months of CRT (mean follow-up 9.2 +/- 3.2 months). LVEF was assessed b...

lodine-123 metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) uptake was reported to be reduced compared to Tl-201 (Tl) in acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Within such an area, degrees of both sympathetic neural function and ischemic myocardial cell damage are considered to be greatly dispersed. These kinds of damage were reported to effect reporalization time in myocardial cells, and we evaluated our hypothesis...

A 6-year-old boy with ganglioneuroblastoma, received 4 courses of chemotherapy and underwent partial resection the tumor. The control scintigraphy 123 I-metaiodobenzylguanidine ( I-mIBG) was performed, including single photon emission computed tomography protocol combined (SPECT/CT), revealing residual tumor pathological uptake I-MIBG. In addition to this, there a focal I-mIBG in gallbladder. t...

BACKGROUND Although both (123)I-metaiodobenzylguanidine ((123)I-MIBG) imaging and (11)C-hydroxyephedrine ((11)C-HED) positron emission tomography (PET) are used for assessing cardiac sympathetic innervation, their relationship remains unknown. The aims were to determine whether (123)I-MIBG parameters such as heart-to-mediastinum ratio (H/M) are associated with quantitative measures by (11)C-HED...

It is assumed that the low-frequency power (LF) of heart rate variability (HRV) increases with progress of congestive heart failure (CHF), therefore positively correlating with cardiac 123I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) washout. It is demonstrated here that HRV, including normalized LF, correlated inversely with MIBG washout and positively with the ratio of heart-to-mediastinum MIBG activity i...