Nuclear cardiology

Nuclear cardiology has shown double digit growth yearly over the last few years and remains the second most commonly performed noninvasive cardiac imaging investigation of choice. Approximately 9 million studies performed yearly in the U.S. alone. As cardiovascular disease remains the largest healthcare problem around the world despite increasing healthcare spending there is growing interest to enhance the use of cost effective diagnostic tools, such as nuclear cardiology. Recent development of technology has seen the addition of hybrid imaging tools such PET/CT and SPECT/CT into the armorial. More data is expected to become available on this subject within the next few years, and we also expect several molecular imaging tests to become available for clinical use. Despite easy availability of these diagnostic tools, cardiac mortality and morbidity in patients with long term diabetes and also in the postoperative setting remains unexpectedly high and emergency department physician are still being sued after patients being discharged with undiagnosed chest pain. The value of the use of nuclear cardiology studies is briefly reviewed in these clinical settings.