Cutting-Edge Radionuclide Imaging: Beyond Perfusion Imaging
Sunday, April 3, 4:45-6:00 PM
When we think of cardiac SPECT and PET, it's generally in relation to triaging acute chest pain patients, but there is so much more to perfusion imaging than that. In this session, cardiologists will get a glimpse of the value of nuclear medicine beyond myocardial perfusion imaging. Many of these applications speak to the momentum for a more individualized approach to imaging. In other words, imaging that gives us specific information about a particular patient and his or her particular disease, which lead to highly tailored treatment.
For example, research into nuclear imaging tracers has shown that some of them can help distinguish various components of plaque. The value of this information is tremendous. It can help cardiologists decide to be more aggressive with medical therapy or with an invasive therapy; or it can help avoid unnecessary therapy if the plaque is shown to be relatively stable.
Other uses for nuclear cardiology include assessing stem cell therapy, which is increasingly being tested as a means to help those with heart failure, and to assess micro-dysfunction associated with the autonomic nervous system. We are leaving the one-size-fits-all management of patients and entering into the era of targeted imaging. This session will help carry you further along the path.
Speaker Information
When we think of cardiac SPECT and PET, it's generally in relation to triaging acute chest pain patients, but there is so much more to perfusion imaging than that. In this session, cardiologists will get a glimpse of the value of nuclear medicine beyond myocardial perfusion imaging. Many of these applications speak to the momentum for a more individualized approach to imaging. In other words, imaging that gives us specific information about a particular patient and his or her particular disease, which lead to highly tailored treatment.
For example, research into nuclear imaging tracers has shown that some of them can help distinguish various components of plaque. The value of this information is tremendous. It can help cardiologists decide to be more aggressive with medical therapy or with an invasive therapy; or it can help avoid unnecessary therapy if the plaque is shown to be relatively stable.
Other uses for nuclear cardiology include assessing stem cell therapy, which is increasingly being tested as a means to help those with heart failure, and to assess micro-dysfunction associated with the autonomic nervous system. We are leaving the one-size-fits-all management of patients and entering into the era of targeted imaging. This session will help carry you further along the path.
Speaker Information
- Albert J. Sinusas, MD, Yale University, New Haven, Conn. -- Imaging to Assess Cardiac Remodeling
- Ahmed A. Tawakol, MD, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston -- Atherosclerotic Plaque Imaging
- Diwakar Jain, MD, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia -- Imaging Ischemic Memory: BMIPP, Familal Dysbetalipopreteinemia
- M. Roselle Abraham, MD, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore -- SPECT and PET to Assess Cardiac Stem Cell Therapy
- Mark I. Travin, MD, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, N.Y. -- Imaging of Cardiac Autonomic Innervation