The role of nuclear medicine in the prediction and detection of radiation-associated normal pulmonary and cardiac damage.

Dose-effect calculations used in the planning of modern radiotherapy (RT) involving normal lung or cardiac tissue rely on structural imaging techniques, such as CT, as the basis for measuring and predicting dose-response. However, more accurate methods for predicting dose-response may result if information on the locoregional functional status of the irradiated organ(s) is included in the computational model. For RT cases that involve delivering dose to the lung and heart, this may be achieved by the assessment of tomographic scintigraphies of lung perfusion (Q) and ventilation (V) and scintigraphic imaging of myocardial perfusion and function, respectively.