4. Basic
• Uses a radioactive compound that is taken up and retained in
viable cardiac muscle
• Produces an objective, quantifiable 3-D map of myocardial
perfusion by a camera
• Radionuclide injected at rest and/or stress
• Rest images compared with stress images
5. Radionuclide
• Isotopes
• Thallium-201 or Technetium-99m sestamibi
• Both assess LV function and ischemia
• Sestamibi (MIBI) has superior imaging quality
» Good for obese or female patients
• Isotopes taken up by viable myocardial cells in quantities proportional to
perfusion,emit gamma rays which are collected by special instrumentations
called gamma camera
• Well perfused regions appear brighter
Tc-99m
6. Positron emitter
• Usually cyclotron produced-high energy,short half life
<2hr
• Expensive & not widely available
• Gold standard for detecting hibernating myocardium
• 18FDG – hibernating myocardium
• 13N ammonia-myocardial perfusion
• 15O- O2 utilization
8. Single Photon Emission Computed
Tomography:
• SPECT is the standard method for myocardial perfusion
scintigraphy.
• The cross-sectional images have high contrast resolution
and are displayed three-dimension along the short and long
axis of the heart.
• Providing good delineation of the various regional
myocardial perfusion beds supplied by their individual
coronary arteries
10. Positron Emission Tomography(PET)
• PET offers a higher spatial resolution than SPECT
• Routine use of PET is constrained by limited availability & cost
11. Contraindications
• Pregnancy
• Food within 4 hours of stress study
• Caffeine within 24 hours (for pharmaceutical stress)
• Bronchospasm or severe obstructive lung disease (for
pharmaceutical stress)
• Xanthine-containing drugs
12. The Stress: Exercise vs pharmacologic
• Exercise and pharmacologic agents are used to achieve
maximal coronary dilation and flow.
• Exercise stress gives additional information:(preferred)
– Degree of exercise tolerance
– Time to maximal heart rate
– Blood pressure response
14. Stress procedure
• The patients must be fasting for 4 to 6 hours before the test
• Beta blockers may prevent achievement of maximum heart rate.
• Nitrates and calcium channel blockers may mask or prevent cardiac
ischemia.
• Assessment of drug therapy effectiveness requires the patient to
remain on medication.
• Thyophylline and caffeine also held before pharmacological test.
16. Indications for Pharmacologic Stress
Imaging
• Inability to perform adequate exercise
• Left bundle branch block
• Ventricular pacemaker
• CCB’s or Beta blockers
• Evaluation of patients very early after acute MI
(<3 days) or very early after stenting ( <2 weeks)
32. Risk Stratification: Prognosis
• Risk of Cardiac Death:
• Normal MPI indicates good prognosis
• Low
<1% per year
• Intermediate
1-3% per year
• High
>3% per year
33. High Risk Feature of SPECT MPI
• Following features demonstrate >3% annual mortality
Post-stress EF <35% (99m-Technetium).
Stress induced large perfusion defect.
Stress induced multiple perfusion defects of moderate size.
Large, fixed perfusion defect with LV dilation or increased
lung uptake (Thallium-201).
Stress induced moderate perfusion defect with LV dilation
or increased lung uptake (Thallium 201).
36. Assessment of LV Function
• Gated-SPECT study
• ECG is acquired at the time of the SPECT acquisition for
simultaneous assessment of perfusion and function of the
left ventricle in one examination
• Left ventricular end-diastolic volume, end-systolic volume,
stroke volume and ejection fraction may be calculated
automatically, although the values obtained should be
checked against initial qualitative assessment
37. Myocardial perfusion Images with 1 cardiac cycle: From
End-Diastole throuth End-Systole to End-Diastole of next
cycle
39. Assessment of Myocardial Viability
• Ischemic LVF patients can benefit from
revascularization procedures if there is
evidence of myocardial viability
• Noninvasive techniques can only identify
tissue that might benefit from
revascularization
40. Key non invasive methods to identify
viability
• Echocardiography
• Single Photon Emission Computed
Tomography (SPECT)
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
• Cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR)
41. SPECT
• 201Tl stress redistribution:
• Acquire a third set of images at 24 hours
• This would allow for redistribution of the
tracer to very ischemic (yet viable) tissue
44. Positron emission tomography (PET)
• metabolically inert—nonviable myocardium
will appear as a region of low-FDG
concentration in such images suggesting scar
• In areas of reversibly injured myocardium,
glucose utilization is normal and even above
normal
45. SPECT VS FDG PET
• Brunken et al published data from a
comparison of tomographic thallium images
with PET images; 47% of the irreversible
thallium defects were identified as viable on
PET images