Recent advances in SPECT technology including cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) semiconductor detector material may pave the way for absolute myocardial blood flow (MBF) measurements by SPECT. The aim of the present study was to compare K1 uptake rate constants as surrogates of absolute MBF and myocardial flow reserve index (MFRi) in humans as assessed with a CZT SPECT camera versus PET. METHODS A...

BACKGROUND We tested the hypothesis, that intramyocardial injection of mononuclear bone marrow cells combined with coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery improves tissue viability or function in infarct regions with non-viable myocardium as assessed by nuclear imaging techniques. METHODS Thus far, 7 patients (60 +/- 10 [SD] years) undergoing elective CABG surgery after a myocardial in...

A 74-year-old man was referred to the Cardiology clinic with a 3-week history of exertional chest tightness. These episodes lasted a few seconds without any limitation to activity. The gentleman is an ex-smoker and a hypertensive on treatment. The results of the clinical examination and ECG were unremarkable. An exercise tolerance test was found to be negative, albeit at a subtarget heart rate....

OBJECTIVES We sought to compare contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (ceMRI) with nuclear metabolic imaging for the assessment of myocardial viability in patients with chronic ischemic heart disease and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction. BACKGROUND Contrast-enhanced MRI has been shown to identify scar tissue in ischemically damaged myocardium. METHODS Twenty-six patients with chroni...

Objectives: To measure the organ dose and calculate effective dose from CTAC acquisitions from four commonly used gamma camera SPECT/CT systems. Method: CTAC dosimetry data was collected using thermoluminescent dosimeters on GE's Infinia Hawkeye four and single slice systems, Siemen's Symbia T6 and the Philips Precedence. Organ and effective dose from the administration of 99m Tc-tetrofosmin an...

Background—Disturbances of autonomic function after infarction are associated with both total mortality and sudden death. Although many imaging techniques for assessing the cardiac autonomic nervous system have been studied, the clinical usefulness of these techniques remains uncertain. This exploratory pilot study examined the relationship between abnormalities of ventricular sympathetic inner...

UNLABELLED Even after recanalization of a chronic total coronary occlusion, functional recovery is incomplete and parts of the myocardium remain hypoperfused. In this randomized, placebo-controlled, and double-blinded study, we investigated relative changes in myocardial perfusion and glucose metabolism induced by intracoronary administration of blood-derived circulating progenitor cells (CPCs)...

OBJECTIVES Use of a positron emission tomography (PET)/single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) system facilitates the simultaneous acquisition of images with fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) and technetium ((99m)Tc)-tetrofosmin. However, (18)F has a short half-life, and 511 keV Compton-scattered photons are detected in the (99m)Tc energy window. Therefore, in this study, we...

OBJECTIVES The energy resolution of a cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) solid-state semiconductor detector is about 5%, and is superior to the resolution of the conventional Anger type detector which is 10%. Also, the window width of the high-energy part and of the low-energy part of a photo peak window can be changed separately. In this study, we used a semiconductor detector and examined the effec...