title: Cardiac nuclear medicine in monitoring patients with coronary heart disease.
abstract: Patient monitoring is a major indication for cardiac nuclear medicine procedures. Stress myocardial perfusion scintigraphy was initially used for diagnosis, but monitoring patients with coronary artery disease has become more common. Stress myocardial perfusion scintigraphy has been shown to provide a considerable amount of incremental prognostic information, which may be useful in selecting patients for therapy. In patients being considered for revascularization, fluorodeoxyglucose can be used to identify regions of dysfunctional but viable myocardium, even within regions that show fixed defects on stress perfusion imaging. It can be used to select a group of patients who will improve function with revascularization and who may have an improved outcome. Thus, cardiac nuclear medicine plays a pivotal role in monitoring patients with coronary artery disease.
authors: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Joint Program in Nuclear Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215-5491, USA.
authors: J A
authors: JA
authors: Parker
mesh_terms: D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006321:Heart / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18