Cardiac Imaging

Coronary CT angiography images of a coronary artery depicting the perivascular fat attenuation index (FAI) before and after psoriasis biologic drug therapy at one-year follow-up. Patients had excellent response to biologic therapy, showing clear reductions in the inflammation in plaques that cause heart attacks and stokes. Image from the Oxford Academic Cardiovascular CT Core Lab and Lab of Inflammation and Cardiometabolic Diseases at NHLBI.

 

An example of AI-assisted automation developed by TomTec, where a deep learning algorithm automatically marks the myocardial borders and performs auto quantification This removes time consuming tasks to free up the operator to spend more time with patients and helps make exams more reproducible.

An example of FFR-CT imaging from Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich. The left image shows a 3D generated image of the coronary tree from a CT scan evaluated with computational fluid dynamics to determine the FFR numbers. It shows a severe restriction of the left main artery which requires a stent to revacularize. The image on the right is a comparison with the invasive angiogram from the cath lab prior to stenting. 

With the advent and optimization of nuclear scintigraphy protocols using bone-avid radiotracers, cardiac amyloidosis caused by transthyretin protein (ATTR) can now be diagnosed noninvasively without a costly tissue biopsy. The radiotracer 99mTc-pyrophosphate (99mTc-PYP) binds to deposited ATTR amyloid fibrils in the myocardium and can be visualized using planar and SPECT imaging. This is Figure 2, showing how SPECT imaging allows the reader to distinguish between blood pool activity (ventricular cavity, etc) and myocardial activity and identify regional myocardial differences in radiotracer uptake.