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Project

MULTIMODAL IMAGING OF ISCHEMIC HEART DISEASE AND HEART FAILURE

During the last decades important technological advances in nuclear imaging, represented by single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and positron emission tomography (PET), strengthened its position in the field of non-invasive cardiac imaging and expanded its opportunities for the evaluation of patients with cardiovascular diseases. This PhD project was intended to give an insight in some of the novel opportunities of nuclear cardiology to assess perfusion and metabolism that can assist in the diagnosis of CAD and therapy guidance in the context of heart failure (HF).

One of the research aims of this PhD project was to explore how the assessment of perfusion and glucose metabolism, with 13N-NH3 and 18F-FDG PET, respectively, can help to unravel the pathophysiology of left ventricular (LV) remodelling in cardiac-resynchronization therapy (CRT) candidates and whether PET can help to reliably guide the necessity of CRT implantation in HF patients.

A second research focus of this PhD project was on the recently introduced novel cardiac dedicated cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) SPECT cameras, that for the first time offered an opportunity to quantify myocardial perfusion with SPECT, providing a great potential for the improvement of management of patients with CAD. Furthermore, acknowledging the disadvantages of clinically available SPECT perfusion tracers, we renewed our interest in 99mTc-teboroxime - a perfusion tracer with more favourable characteristics, that for a long time was withdrawn from the market due to incompatibility of its fast kinetics with the slow conventional SPECT cameras. In this research project we investigated if the fast kinetics of 99mTc-teboroxime could be an advantage for the novel SPECT CZT camera and evaluated its performance to quantify myocardial perfusion.

Date:1 Jan 2017 →  29 May 2020
Keywords:SPECT, PET, ischemic heart disease
Disciplines:Medicinal products, Medical imaging and therapy
Project type:PhD project