Comparison of diagnostic performances of three different software packages in detecting coronary artery disease

Abstract

Quantitation was and is the main diagnostic goal of nuclear medicine. The ability to measure a process or to quantify a disease reflects the capability of a diagnostic tool to understand the intimal mechanism of physiological processes. Observing or measuring are completely different attitudes and they make the difference between modern, evidence-based medicine and the medicine of the nineteenth century based on subjectivity of physicians rather than objectivity of data. The measure of myocardial blood flow and the definition of coronary flow reserve [1] have defined a cultural background able to open new research perspectives to investigators interested in understanding the intrinsic mechanism of myocardial ischaemia and coronary artery disease. Measuring itself, however, is necessary but not sufficient to provide effective clinical information if investigators and physicians are not aware about the robustness of the quantitative data provided by different diagnostic tools. In nuclear cardiology, traditional quantitative measures can be categorized in hierarchical order according to the complexity of the measure: (1) relative (count/voxel), (2) absolute (MBq/cm 3 ) and (3) physiological (cm 3 /s per g).