Interactive 3D hybrid PET/CT imaging in the identification of myocardial viability in patients after myocardial infarction: feasibility study and clinical implications.

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: Clinical decision-making in coronary artery disease requires integrated information on myocardial viability and coronary arteries, and cross-modality registration could facilitate this process. The recent emergence of hybrid positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) allows acquisition of this information in one study session; however, clinically useful software capable of presenting three-dimensional (3D) fused images to assess the relationship between myocardium and coronary arteries is limited.

METHODS: Patients with prior myocardial infarction were examined using electrocardiographically gated 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET and 16-slice CT.

RESULTS: There were seven patients; mean age was 59 +/- 15 years and six were male. Using 3D reconstruction, coregistration and interactive display, the topographical relationship between myocardial viability and coronary arteries was clearly identified.

CONCLUSION: We present a protocol to acquire CT coronary angiography and PET data and to visualize 3D fused images with an interactive visualization interface. This image coregistration is potentially useful to facilitate the process of image interpretation and decision-making.