Recent Events

October 29, 2009

To: Those who stopped by the Eagle Heart Imaging (formerly Aptive) Booth in Minneapolis

Re: State-of-the-art Myocardial Perfusion Imaging (MPI)

We very much appreciate interaction we had with all of you at the ASNC meeting. There’s a lot to be excited about in cardiac imaging in spite of the converging challenges of diminishing reimbursement, interruptions in isotope supplies, and concerns about patient radiation exposure.  All of these factors have combined to generate a unique opportunity for MP-SPECT, which addresses most of the major issues confronting our field going forward.

It was also evident in Minneapolis that the surge in new technical developments in nuclear cardiology has plateaued and we are now entering a period of methodological consolidation where the clinical needs and the technical capabilities of these hardware and software innovations will be defined and refined.  At this point several conclusions can be drawn.

1. The most advantageous system performance for fast-SPECT cardiac imaging is accomplished by the use of stationary detectors with non-moving collimation.  Motion within the components of the imaging platform complicates reconstruction, diminishes the ability to study rapid temporal changes and reduces the effective sensitivity of the overall system.  The ability to perform MPI using a completely stationary platform is accomplished at this time only by multi-pinhole SPECT and PET.

2. Iterative reconstruction with depth dependent system modeling is now accepted as a prerequisite for the fast-SPECT methodologies which generally acquire fewer images using shorter acquisition times.  It helps immensely that available computer power has increased to meet the demands of these high order reconstruction techniques.  MP-SPECT takes full advantage if this approach.

3.  Systems which incorporate the capabilities described above are uniquely suited to support both current MPI clinical protocols and more innovative protocols that will be developed to support future diagnostic needs.  You’ve heard about dynamic flow studies to measure absolute blood flow, phase analysis of gated myocardial perfusion studies and imaging during pharmacologic stress. We can now anticipate cardiac SPECT systems capable of imaging during physiologic stress.  Remember stress gated blood pool studies?  It’s “back to the future” all over again.

4. In order for any of these developments to bear fruit they need to be available at a cost that supports wide-spread utilization, provides increased diagnostic accuracy and ultimately reduces the overall cost per study.