Advantageous Features of Combined PET/MR with Focus on Cardiac Applications
| Assessment of… | Advantageous features of PET/MR |
| Morphology | No ionizing radiation, high soft-tissue contrast, coronaries +, plaque imaging +, cardiac structure +++, fiber architecture +++ |
| LV function | Gold standard; correlation with metabolic information/perfusion (risk stratification, prognosis) |
| Perfusion | Cross-validation of myocardial blood flow quantification; no contrast agents for arterial spin-labeled MR imaging; attenuation correction by MR; motion and partial-volume correction for myocardial blood flow quantification |
| Infarction and viability | Scar delineation (LGE) +++; combination of glucose metabolism (viable vs. nonviable), perfusion (normal perfusion, hypoperfusion, no perfusion), LV parameters, and LGE (transmural vs. nontransmural scar); potential additional value for risk stratification/prognosis/therapy guidance |
| Molecular imaging (e.g., inflammation, angiogenesis, sympathetic innervation, gene transfer, and cell transplantation) | MR spectroscopy (cardiac metabolism and composition); ideal combination of high sensitivity of PET and vast variety of PET radiotracers for detection and quantification of molecular targets as well as localization and volume correction by MR; still large scope for development of new tracers, imaging techniques, and applications in MR |