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E-ISSN: 2149-6447
Nuclear Cardiology in the Diagnosis and Management of Coronory Artery Disease
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Review
VOLUME: 4 ISSUE: 2
P: 80-95
June 2018

Nuclear Cardiology in the Diagnosis and Management of Coronory Artery Disease

Nucl Med Semin 2018;4(2):80-95
DOI: 10.4274/nts.2018.012
Hülya Yalçın 1
Fevziye Canbaz Tosun 1
1. Mustafa Kemal Üniversitesi Tayfur Sökmen Tıp Fakültesi, Nükleer Tıp Anabilim Dalı, Hatay, Türkiye
2. Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Tıp Fakültesi, Nükleer Tıp Anabilim Dalı, Samsun, Türkiye
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ABSTRACT

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a coronary artery narrowing or occluding disorder that could end up with myocardial infarction or death due to atherosclerosis. A complete assessment of CAD requires both anatomical and functional information. The clinical scenario is most often the deciding factor between anatomical and functional imaging. Anatomical imaging is most helpful to exclude disease in asymptomatic or low likelihood patients, whereas functional imaging is most helpful in symptomatic patients. Myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) is one of the most frequently used functional modalities with high diagnostic accuracy and level of evidence, allowing reliable risk stratification and guiding the selection of patients for further interventions. Normal stress MPS findings strongly indicate the absence of coronary obstruction and hence of clinically significant disease. Another noninvasive modality is cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) providing additional information for quantitative myocardial blood flow, coronary flow reserve, and viability. The combination of cardiac single photon emission tomography or PET with computed tomography increases the diagnostic accuracy of the test especially with improvements in specificity and could decrease the number of incompletely evaluated patients. Recently developed PET/magnetic resonance (MR) hybrid imaging, apart from lack of ionizing radiation of MR component, provides data related to soft tissue and plaque biology. Developments in radiopharmaceuticals, hardware, and software give hope that nuclear imaging modalities will be more frequently used for diagnosis, follow-up, and treatment evaluation in CAD. Identification of subclinical coronary artery atherosclerosis to enhance primary prevention of CAD, acute myocardial infarction, and sudden cardiac death requires a paradigm shift in the perspectives of next generation imaging techniques. In this review, the importance and application areas of nuclear cardiologic methods in the diagnosis and management of CAD were discussed in the context of current cardiac guidelines.