Subclinical disease detection: advanced imaging applications

Coronary events are the leading cause of death in the United States, and sudden coronary death is often the first presenting symptom. Because there is such a large population at risk for coronary events and because many of these patients go undetected before presenting with a significant cardiovascular event or sudden death, there is great interest in better detection and characterization of subclinical disease before it causes morbidity and mortality. This chapter will focus on promising imaging-based methods for the evaluation of subclinical cardiovascular disease. Several imaging methods that are most likely to be useful for future screening and intervention studies for characterizing risk among asymptomatic persons will be presented.