Written by Kaitylyn Dymterko
Using both PET and SPECT may have the potential to provide clinically useful data to enable better stratification and favorable treatments for heart failure patients.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued a final Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) rule to slightly increase the current Medicare payments to acute care hospitals and long-term inpatient hospitals.
For patients with unfavorable coronary sinus (CS) vein anatomy, cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) via a surgical minithoracotomic approach is preferable to transvenous lead implantation, according to a study published in the July 26 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. However, an accompanying editorial recommended caution when deciding whether to recommend routine CT scans to define anatomy in possible CRT candidates due to iatrogenic radiation exposure.
The clinical profile of stress cardiomyopathy (SC) may be broader than expected, including men, younger patients and patients without an identifiable stressful trigger. Cardiovascular MR (CMR) imaging could help rule out SC at presentation by providing helpful diagnostic information that can verify relevant functional and tissue changes, according to a study published in the July 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In diabetic patients, fatty acid metabolism or perfusion mismatch obtained from dual SPECT using I-123 beta-methyl iodophenyl pentadecanoic acid (BMIPP)-TL, a medical isotope bound with an agent that is metabolized by the heart to image the fatty acid uptake of heart muscle cells, is a useful prognostic tool for adverse cardiac events, according to a study presented this week at the SNM’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
Written by C.P. Kaiser
SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) is a well-validated noninvasive test to determine if coronary artery disease (CAD) is the cause of a patient’s chest pain. While SPECT will continue to play a role in this patient population, other tests are helping to fill in the gaps in identifying those at risk of cardiac events.
Written by Kaitlyn Dmyterko
Due to the commonality of these arrhythmias and the number of procedures necessary to treat them, there is a growing need for the field of electrophysiology (EP). And to better treat patients with dangerous arrhythmias, practitioners have begun using cardiac PET and SPECT to help in patient selection and to guide EP procedures including ablations, lead placements and CRT implantations.
Right ventricular failure (RVF) was associated with reversible reduction in left ventricular (LV) free wall mass in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, according to a study in the Feb. 22 Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
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