Cardiac positron emission tomography.

Positron emission tomography (PET) is a new technique for noninvasively assessing myocardial metabolism and perfusion. It has provided new insight into the dynamics of myocardial fatty acid and glucose metabolism in normal subjects, patients with ischemic heart disease and those with cardiomyopathies, documenting regionally depressed fatty acid metabolism during myocardial ischemia and infarction and spatial heterogeneity of fatty acid metabolism in patients with cardiomyopathy. Regional myocardial perfusion has been studied with PET using water, ammonia and rubidium labeled with positron emitters, permitting the noninvasive detection of hypoperfused zones at rest and during vasodilator stress. With these techniques the relationship between perfusion and the metabolism of a variety of substrates has been studied. The great strides that have been made in developing faster high-resolution instruments and producing new labeled intermediates indicate the promise of this technique for facilitating an increase in the understanding of regional metabolism and blood flow under normal and pathophysiologic conditions.