Noninvasive surveillance for cardiac allograft vasculopathy following heart transplantation: One of several emerging clinical applications for cardiac positron emission tomography with assessment of myocardial blood flow reserve

Abstract

Cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) with assessment of myocardial blood flow reserve (MBFR) has matured over several decades and is now widely recognized as a powerful tool for the diagnosis of obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), for the assessment of prognosis in patients with known or suspected CAD, and for informing decisions for revascularization. In addition to the assessment of obstructive epicardial coronary artery atherosclerosis, cardiac PET with assessment of MBFR is capable of comprehensively evaluating all levels of the vascular supply to the myocardium (large conduit epicardial arteries, resistance arterioles, and the microvasculature) and has demonstrated the potential to provide useful information in other clinical scenarios.