title: Imaging myocardial inflammation of various etiologies with 99mTc-depreotide SPET/CT.
abstract: Previous reports suggested the accumulation of technetium-99m-depreotide trifluoroacetate ((99m)Tc-D) at the sites of active infection or inflammation.  Binding of depreotide to over-expressed somatostatin receptors in activated lymphocytes and macrophages probably accounts for the depiction of inflammation.  We speculated that myocardial inflammation could also be illustrated by (99m)Tc-D scintigraphy. We report on 3 patients with the clinical diagnosis of myocarditis  of various etiologies, in which (99m)Tc-D SPET/CT demonstrated obvious tracer uptake in the myocardium of the left ventricle.  In conclusion, we suggest that depreotide imaging can depict myocardial inflammation, thus supporting clinical diagnosis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nuclear Medicine, Cardiology Clinic, University Hospital of Patras, Girokomeiou str. 45, Patras 26500 Greece. tspyr@med.upatras.gr
authors.forename: Trifon
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Spyridonidis
authors.forename: Nikolaos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Patsouras
authors.forename: Sotiria
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Alexiou
authors.forename: Dimitris J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Apostolopoulos
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007249:Inflammation; D009205:Myocarditis; D009206:Myocardium; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed