New Imaging Protocols for New Single Photon Emission CT Technologies

Nuclear cardiology practitioners have several new technologies available with which to perform myocardial perfusion single photon emission CT (MPS). These include dedicated small-footprint cardiac scanners, new stationary or semi-stationary three-dimensional detectors, and advanced software algorithms for optimal image reconstruction. These new technologies have been employed to reduce imaging time and radiation exposure. They require less technologist and camera time and offer improved patient comfort. They have potential for the overall cost reduction of MPS and at the same time for improved accuracy by increased resolution, or accurate attenuation correction. Furthermore, these new technologies offer potential for new protocols such as simultaneous dual isotope, new combinations of isotopes, stress only MPS, or dynamic first-pass imaging. In addition, new imaging technologies in coronary CT angiography (CCTA) allow novel hybrid stress only MPS/CCTA protocols with reduced radiation burden. Additional developments further improving efficiency and diagnostic accuracy of MPS are on the horizon

Noninvasive Atherosclerotic Phenotyping: The Next Frontier into Understanding the Pathobiology of Coronary Artery Disease

Purpose of Review Despite recent advances, coronary artery disease remains one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Noninvasive imaging allows atherosclerotic phenotyping by measurement of plaque burden, morphology, activity and inflammation, which has the potential to refine patient risk stratification and guide personalized therapy. This review describes the current and emerging roles of advanced noninvasive cardiovascular imaging methods for the assessment of coronary artery disease.Recent Findings Cardiac computed tomography enables comprehensive, noninvasive imaging of the coronary vasculature, and is used to assess luminal stenoses, coronary calcifications, and distinct adverse plaque characteristics, helping to identify patients prone to future events. Novel software tools, implementing artificial intelligence solutions, can automatically quantify and characterize atherosclerotic plaque from standard computed tomography datasets. These quantitative imaging biomarkers have been shown to improve patient risk stratification beyond clinical risk scores and current clinical interpretation of cardiac computed tomography. In addition, noninvasive molecular imaging in higher risk patients can be used to assess plaque activity and plaque thrombosis.Summary Noninvasive imaging allows unique insight into the burden, morphology and activity of atherosclerotic coronary plaques. Such phenotyping of atherosclerosis can potentially improve individual patient risk prediction, and in the near future has the potential for clinical implementation.<br/

Motion frozen 18F-FDG cardiac PET

BackgroundPET reconstruction incorporating spatially variant 3D Point Spread Function (PSF) improves contrast and image resolution. "Cardiac Motion Frozen" (CMF) processing eliminates the influence of cardiac motion in static summed images. We have evaluated the combined use of CMF- and PSF-based reconstruction for high-resolution cardiac PET.MethodsStatic and 16-bin ECG-gated images of 20 patients referred for (18)F-FDG myocardial viability scans were obtained on a Siemens Biograph-64. CMF was applied to the gated images reconstructed with PSF. Myocardium to blood contrast, maximum left ventricle (LV) counts to defect contrast, contrast-to-noise (CNR) and wall thickness with standard reconstruction (2D-AWOSEM), PSF, ED-gated PSF, and CMF-PSF were compared.ResultsThe measured wall thickness was 18.9 ± 5.2 mm for 2D-AWOSEM, 16.6 ± 4.5 mm for PSF, and 13.8 ± 3.9 mm for CMF-PSF reconstructed images (all P &lt; .05). The CMF-PSF myocardium to blood and maximum LV counts to defect contrasts (5.7 ± 2.7, 10.0 ± 5.7) were higher than for 2D-AWOSEM (3.5 ± 1.4, 6.5 ± 3.1) and for PSF (3.9 ± 1.7, 7.7 ± 3.7) (CMF vs all other, P &lt; .05). The CNR for CMF-PSF (26.3 ± 17.5) was comparable to PSF (29.1 ± 18.3), but higher than for ED-gated dataset (13.7 ± 8.8, P &lt; .05).ConclusionCombined CMF-PSF reconstruction increased myocardium to blood contrast, maximum LV counts to defect contrast and maintained equivalent noise when compared to static summed 2D-AWOSEM and PSF reconstruction

Artificial Intelligence in Ventricular Arrhythmias and Sudden Death

Sudden cardiac arrest due to lethal ventricular arrhythmias is a major cause of mortality worldwide and results in more years of potential life lost than any individual cancer. Most of these sudden cardiac arrest events occur unexpectedly in individuals who have not been identified as high-risk due to the inadequacy of current risk stratification tools. Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly being used to solve complex problems and are poised to help with this major unmet need in the field of clinical electrophysiology. By leveraging large and detailed datasets, artificial intelligence-based prediction models have the potential to enhance the risk stratification of lethal ventricular arrhythmias. This review presents a synthesis of the published literature and a discussion of future directions in this field

Aortic valve imaging using 18F-sodium fluoride: impact of triple motion correction

BACKGROUND: Current (18)F-NaF assessments of aortic valve microcalcification using (18)F-NaF PET/CT are based on evaluations of end-diastolic or cardiac motion-corrected (ECG-MC) images, which are affected by both patient and respiratory motion. We aimed to test the impact of employing a triple motion correction technique (3 × MC), including cardiorespiratory and gross patient motion, on quantitative and qualitative measurements. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen patients with aortic stenosis underwent two repeat 30-min PET aortic valve scans within (29 ± 24) days. We considered three different image reconstruction protocols; an end-diastolic reconstruction protocol (standard) utilizing 25% of the acquired data, an ECG-gated (four ECG gates) reconstruction (ECG-MC), and a triple motion-corrected (3 × MC) dataset which corrects for both cardiorespiratory and patient motion. All datasets were compared to aortic valve calcification scores (AVCS), using the Agatston method, obtained from CT scans using correlation plots. We report SUV(max) values measured in the aortic valve and maximum target-to-background ratios (TBR(max)) values after correcting for blood pool activity. RESULTS: Compared to standard and ECG-MC reconstructions, increases in both SUV(max) and TBR(max) were observed following 3 × MC (SUV(max): Standard = 2.8 ± 0.7, ECG-MC = 2.6 ± 0.6, and 3 × MC = 3.3 ± 0.9; TBR(max): Standard = 2.7 ± 0.7, ECG-MC = 2.5 ± 0.6, and 3 × MC = 3.3 ± 1.2, all p values ≤ 0.05). 3 × MC had improved correlations (R(2) value) to the AVCS when compared to the standard methods (SUV(max): Standard = 0.10, ECG-MC = 0.10, and 3 × MC = 0.20; TBR(max): Standard = 0.20, ECG-MC = 0.28, and 3 × MC = 0.46). CONCLUSION: 3 × MC improves the correlation between the AVCS and SUV(max) and TBR(max) and should be considered in PET studies of aortic valves using (18)F-NaF. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40658-022-00433-7

Simplified Approach to Predicting Obstructive Coronary Disease With Integration of Coronary Calcium: Development and External Validation

BACKGROUND The Diamond-Forrester model was used extensively to predict obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD) but overestimates probability in current populations. Coronary artery calcium (CAC) is a useful marker of CAD, which is not routinely integrated with other features. We derived simple likelihood tables, integrating CAC with age, sex, and cardiac chest pain to predict obstructive CAD. METHODS AND RESULTS The training population included patients from 3 multinational sites (n=2055), with 2 sites for external testing (n=3321). We determined associations between age, sex, cardiac chest pain, and CAC with the presence of obstructive CAD, defined as any stenosis ≥50% on coronary computed tomography angiography. Prediction performance was assessed using area under the receiver-operating characteristic curves (AUCs) and compared with the CAD Consortium models with and without CAC, which require detailed calculations, and the updated Diamond-Forrester model. In external testing, the proposed likelihood tables had higher AUC (0.875 [95% CI, 0.862-0.889]) than the CAD Consortium clinical+CAC score (AUC, 0.868 [95% CI, 0.855-0.881]; P=0.030) and the updated Diamond-Forrester model (AUC, 0.679 [95% CI, 0.658-0.699]; P<0.001). The calibration for the likelihood tables was better than the CAD Consortium model (Brier score, 0.116 versus 0.121; P=0.005). CONCLUSIONS We have developed and externally validated simple likelihood tables to integrate CAC with age, sex, and cardiac chest pain, demonstrating improved prediction performance compared with other risk models. Our tool affords physicians with the opportunity to rapidly and easily integrate a small number of important features to estimate a patient's likelihood of obstructive CAD as an aid to clinical management

Assessment of the relationship between stenosis severity and distribution of coronary artery stenoses on multislice computed tomographic angiography and myocardial ischemia detected by single photon emission computed tomography

The relationship between luminal stenosis measured by coronary CT angiography (CCTA) and severity of stress-induced ischemia seen on single photon emission computed tomographic myocardial perfusion imaging (SPECT-MPI) is not clearly defined. We sought to evaluate the relationship between stenosis severity assessed by CCTA and ischemia on SPECT-MPI. ECG-gated CCTA (64 slice dual source CT) and SPECT-MPI were performed within 6 months in 292 patients (ages 26-91, 73% male) with no prior history of coronary artery disease. Maximal coronary luminal narrowing, graded as 0, ≥25%, 50%, 70%, or 90% visual diameter reduction, was consensually assessed by two expert readers. Perfusion defect on SPECT-MPI was assessed by computer-assisted visual interpretation by an expert reader using the standard 17 segment, 5 point-scoring model (stress perfusion defect of ≥5% = abnormal). By SPECT-MPI, abnormal perfusion was seen in 46/292 patients. With increasing stenosis severity, positive predictive value (PPV) increased (42%, 51%, and 74%, P = .01) and negative predictive value was relatively unchanged (97%, 95%, and 91%) in detecting perfusion abnormalities on SPECT-MPI. In a receiver operator curve analysis, stenosis of 50% and 70% were equally effective in differentiating between the presence and absence of ischemia. In a multivariate analysis that included stenosis severity, multivessel disease, plaque composition, and presence of serial stenoses in a coronary artery, the strongest predictors of ischemia were stenosis of 50-89%, odds ratio (OR) 7.31, P = .001, stenosis ≥90%, OR 34.05, P = .0001, and serial stenosis ≥50% OR of 3.55, P = .006. The PPV of CCTA for ischemia by SPECT-MPI rises as stenosis severity increases. Luminal stenosis ≥90% on CCTA strongly predicts ischemia, while &lt;50% stenosis strongly predicts the absence of ischemia. Serial stenosis of ≥50% in a vessel may offer incremental value in addition to stenosis severity in predicting ischemia