Simultaneous Assessment Of Function Research Articles

Heart Transplantation Using Donors after Circulatory Death: From Research to Clinical Practice

Donation after circulatory death for heart transplantation was abandoned in the 1970s with the advent of the brain death law (donation after brain death), where the donor heart is beating and perfused up to the moment prior to organ retrieval. Shortage of donors has renewed the interest in animal and clinical research of donors after circulatory death for heart transplantation, aiming at optimizing heart function after the period of oxygen deprivation caused by severe hypotension and subsequent circulatory arrest. This study presents the initial experience with donation after circulatory death for heart transplantation at our institution. Papworth Hospital has performed a successful clinical investigation in which ten cardiac transplants were performed with hearts from donation after circulatory death, without mortality. Low risk recipients who had previously signed their consent were chosen. Most hearts from donation after circulatory death were reperfused with an extracorporeal circulation device, and following weaning from the circulatory support the heart was harvested and connected to the perfusion machine for transportation and simultaneous assessment of function before implantation. In conclusion, this technique could be used for cardiac transplantation with satisfactory outcomes.

The role of PET quantification in cardiovascular imaging.

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) has several clinical and research applications in cardiovascular imaging. Myocardial perfusion imaging with PET allows accurate global and regional measurements of myocardial perfusion, myocardial blood flow and function at stress and rest in one exam. Simultaneous assessment of function and perfusion by PET with quantitative software is currently the routine practice. Combination of ejection fraction reserve with perfusion information may improve the identification of severe disease. The myocardial viability can be estimated by quantitative comparison of fluorodeoxyglucose (18FDG) and rest perfusion imaging. The myocardial blood flow and coronary flow reserve measurements are becoming routinely included in the clinical assessment due to enhanced dynamic imaging capabilities of the latest PET/CT scanners. Absolute flow measurements allow evaluation of the coronary microvascular dysfunction and provide additional prognostic and diagnostic information for coronary disease. Standard quantitative approaches to compute myocardial blood flow from kinetic PET data in automated and rapid fashion have been developed for 13N-ammonia, 15O-water and 82Rb radiotracers. The agreement between software methods available for such analysis is excellent. Relative quantification of 82Rb PET myocardial perfusion, based on comparisons to normal databases, demonstrates high performance for the detection of obstructive coronary disease. New tracers, such as 18F-flurpiridaz may allow further improvements in the disease detection. Computerized analysis of perfusion at stress and rest reduces the variability of the assessment as compared to visual analysis. PET quantification can be enhanced by precise coregistration with CT angiography. In emerging clinical applications, the potential to identify vulnerable plaques by quantification of atherosclerotic plaque uptake of 18FDG and 18F-sodium fluoride tracers in carotids, aorta and coronary arteries has been demonstrated.

Value of simultaneous functional assessment in association with acute rest perfusion imaging for predicting short- and long-term outcomes in emergency department patients with chest pain

Value of simultaneous functional assessment in association with acute rest perfusion imaging for predicting short- and long-term outcomes in emergency department patients with chest pain

Simultaneous assessment of function and perfusion during dipyridamole-handgrip Tc-99m sestamibi imaging in chronic coronary artery disease.

The main goal of this work was to know the value of ventricular function in addition to perfusion Tc-99m sestamibi images in the assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD) when using dipyridamole (DIP) associated to isometric exercise. We analyzed 52 patients with suspected CAD; 40 of them had coronary lesions > or = 50% and 12 patients without CAD, conforming study and control groups, respectively. Twenty-eight patients had prior myocardial infarction. A two-day sestamibi protocol was employed with i.v. DIP-handgrip and rest injections, acquiring ECG-gated first pass and planar perfusion images. Sensitivity for perfusion images was 85% and specificity was 91.7%. There was no change between rest and DIP ejection fraction (EF) in controls. CAD patients presented a significant EF decrease with DIP (p: 0.0015). Patients with ischemia in perfusion images had larger EF decrease (p: 0.0001). For the analysis, an EF drop > or = 5% and any wall motion abnormality (WMA) were considered as having an abnormal response to DIP. CAD sensitivity improved significantly to 92.5% when adding EF drop and to 90% when adding WMA parameters, but specificity decreased to 75% with EF drop, and to 58.3% with WMA. In conclusion, first pass parameters from DIP-isometric exercise in addition to perfusion images are not a significant help in the assessment of CAD.

New directions in myocardial perfusion imaging

In recent years, substantial progress has been made in the field of nuclear cardiology. Pharmacologic stress perfusion imaging with intravenous administration of dipyridamole or adenosine provides comparable sensitivity and specificity values for detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) as exercise imaging and has been employed successfully for risk stratification prior to peripheral vascular or aortic surgery and after myocardial infarction. Detection of myocardial viability can be enhanced utilizing reinjection of a second dose of thallium-201 (Tl-201) at rest after acquisition of redistribution images with the single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) technique. Imaging solely in the resting state with Tl-201 can also provide information concerning presence of viable myocardium in asynergic regions that are stunned or hibernating. New technetium-99m (Tc-99m) perfusion agents have emerged in the clinical setting and have provided excellent predictive value for detection of CAD in patients with chest pain and permit simultaneous assessment of function and regional blood flow. Tc-99m Sestamibi, one of these agents, is also a valid marker of viability when assessing myocardial salvage after coronary reperfusion in acute myocardial infarction.