Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute and the EPFL inSwitzerland have developed a way of producing extremely detailed x-rayimages, or ‘dark field’ images, using conventional imaging equipment,which could be of use in a number of applications, including medicalimaging and security screening.

The newly formed Medipix Collaboration, including the EuropeanOrganization for Nuclear Research (CERN) of Geneva, Switzerland, andPANalytical of Almelo, Netherlands, as well as other researchinstitutes including Nikhef of Amsterdam, the national institute forsubatomic physics in the Netherlands, have developed the Medipix2 chip,a photon counting x-ray detector.

Two-dimensional PET using 13N-ammonia as a tracer has establisheditself for the assessment of quantitative regional myocardial bloodflow (MBF) and coronary flow reserve. A multinational team ofresearchers from Switzerland and Japan, in a recent study published inthe Journal of Nuclear Medicine, sought to determine if 3D PET (with septa retracted) could provide similar accuracy.

Given the widespread prevalence of heart disease in the United States,methodology that allows a decrease in the time needed to perform theroughly 9 million annual SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) examswould be warmly received by clinicians. A study delivered at the recentRadiological Society of North America annual scientific assemblysuggests that some reconstruction algorithms can allow MPI acquisitionin a shorter timeframe.

Anthracycline chemotherapeutic agents are commonly employed in thetreatment of lymphoma; however, their efficacy in combating themalignancy comes at a cost—they are cardiotoxic and are known to causecardioditis and cardiomyopathy. A study presented at the recentRadiological Society of North America annual scientific conferencesought to determine a relation between myocardial FDG metabolism withFDG PET/CT scanning and the use of anthracycline chemotherapeuticagents.

A resting radionuclide scan that can identify metabolically impaired myocardium may be able to stratify patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) but no apparent heart disease, according to risk of death from cardiac causes, suggests a study in the Jan.15 issue Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

As SPECT imaging migrates to private physicians offices, PET/CT provides hospitals an opportunity to recapture some of that business.

Considered to be a critical diagnostic tool in imaging patients with suspected or confirmed coronary artery disease (CAD), single photo emission computed tomography (SPECT) is holding its own against emerging cardiovascular imaging modalities such as cardiac CT and MRI and offers considerable advantages that cannot be ignored.