Quantitative analysis in cardiac PET

Quantitative myocardial blood flow parameters obtained with cardiac PET provide both diagnostic and prognostic information on coronary artery disease. Valuable quantitative data can be obtained, but prerequisites are: (i) checking the efficiency of the stress test; and (ii) avoiding patient's movements or misalignment between PET and CT images. Patients with myocardial flow reserve (MFR) for the whole left ventricle below two (and/or a myocardial blood flow [MBE] at stress under 2 mL/min/g) could benefit from invasive coronary angiography. Integrating values of MFR vs. stress MBF in a scatter plot eases the understanding by the clinicians of the patient's cardiac MBF quantitative results. However, challenges remain like differentiating epicardial 3-vessel disease from microvascular disease or correlating PET-measured MBF to FFR information. (C) 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.