Noninvasive cardiovascular imaging techniques for basic science research: application to cellular therapeutics

Cell therapy continues to be an active area of basic science research with early promise in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. However, there are many unknowns including the mechanisms by which they work, the most useful cell types, the most efficient delivery strategies, and their safety. Noninvasive imaging provides a wide array of tools to quantitatively address many of these unknowns. This article reviews echocardiography, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, positron emission tomography and single photon emission tomography in the context of imaging cellular therapeutics to demonstrate how these modalities are being used to answer some of these questions.