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State of the Art in Cardiac Hybrid Technology: PET/MR

  • Cardiac Nuclear Imaging (A Cuocolo, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Simultaneous PET/MRI is an emerging technique combining two powerful imaging modalities in a single device. The wide variety of available tracers for perfusion and metabolic studies and the high sensitivity of positron emission tomography (PET) combined with the high spatial resolution and soft tissue contrast of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in depicting cardiac morphology and function as well as MRI’s absence of ionizing radiation makes PET/MRI very attractive to radiologists and clinicians. Nevertheless, PET/MR scientific and clinical promise is to be considered in the context of numerous technical challenges that hinder its use in the clinical setting. For example, in order for a PET system to work correctly within an MR field, major changes are required to the photon detection chain such as the elimination of photomultiplier tubes, etc. Another significant limitation of PET/MRI is the lack of an electron density map (as is the case with PET-CT) that can be readily obtained from MRI (the latter measures proton not electron density) and used to correct PET data for attenuation. Moreover, as with PET-CT, cardiac and respiratory motions cause image degradations that affect image quality and accuracy both in static and dynamic PET imaging. As a result, overcoming these (and other) technical limitations is a very active area of research both in academic institutions as well as industry. In this paper, we review recent literature on cardiac PET/MRI, present the state-of-the-art of this technology, and explore promising preclinical and clinical cardiac applications where PET/MRI could play a substantial role.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NHLBI-HL110241, PI: Dr El Fakhri) and SDN Foundation (PI: DrNappi). The views presented in this work do not reflect the position of SDN or NIH.

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Conflict of Interest

Carmela Nappi declares she has no potential conflict of interest.

Georges El Fakhri declares he has no potential conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Advanced Medical Imaging Sciences, Radiology, NMMI, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA, 02114, USA

    Carmela Nappi & Georges El Fakhri

  2. Radiology Department, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Carmela Nappi & Georges El Fakhri

  3. Department of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Carmela Nappi

  4. SDN Foundation, Institute of Diagnostic and Nuclear Development, Naples, Italy

    Carmela Nappi

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  1. Carmela Nappi
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  2. Georges El Fakhri
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Correspondence to Georges El Fakhri.

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Nappi, C., El Fakhri, G. State of the Art in Cardiac Hybrid Technology: PET/MR. Curr Cardiovasc Imaging Rep 6, 338–345 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12410-013-9213-5

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