Gated cardiac scanning: canine studies

Retrospective electrocardiograph gating of data from a rotating detector fan beam computed tomography system was employed to produce end systolic and end diastolic images of the beating heart in a series of normal and experimentally infarcted canines. The gating window was typically less than 20% of the cardiac cycle, and the gated images showed superior spatial resolution compared with ungated images of the same cross section. Comparison of the scans of the normal and of the infarcted animals shows abnormal contrast enhancement of the myocardium in the region of the infarct, and the gating studies demonstrate dyskinetic behavior of the infarct zone.