Molecular Imaging in Ischemic Heart Disease.

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Imaging
• Molecular Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Ischemic heart disease and myocardial infarction cause significant cardiac damage.
• Non-invasive imaging is essential for monitoring disease progression and therapeutic response.
• Understanding the biological processes of cardiac healing is critical for improving patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review current and emerging non-invasive imaging modalities for ischemic heart disease and myocardial infarction.
• To highlight advancements in molecular imaging of the myocardium.
• To focus on imaging inflammation as a key process in cardiac repair.

Main Methods:

• Review of current literature on PET and MRI techniques.
• Analysis of novel contrast agents for molecular imaging.
• Discussion of the combination of PET and MRI for simultaneous data acquisition.

Main Results:

• Development of new imaging targets for detecting and quantifying myocardial damage.
• Advancements in MRI offer new research avenues, including combined PET/MRI.
• Novel contrast agents enable imaging of different cardiac healing phases and inflammation.

Conclusions:

• PET and MRI are state-of-the-art for non-invasive molecular imaging of the myocardium.
• Imaging inflammation is key to understanding cardiac repair and predicting outcomes.
• Clinical translation requires larger, multi-center studies to validate new imaging probes.