¹⁸F-FDG PET Viability Assessment for the Improvements of Prognosis of the Patients with Left Ventricular Dysfunction

－Is This Ready for Clinical Practice?－

Abstract

Positron emission tomography (PET) has greater temporal and spatial resolution. ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose (¹⁸F-FDG) PET has also been used to assess pathophysiological condition and to identify the patients who have benefit from coronary revascularization therapy in ischemic left ventricular dysfunction. There have been numbers of studies looking at the diagnostic value of viable myocardium using ¹⁸F-FDG PET. However, the prospective trials have been very limited and has been no previous study prospectively conducted by multi-center. Recently, the prospective multicenter clinical study in Japan showed the diagnostic usefulness of ¹⁸F-FDG in predicting improvement in myocardial wall motion after coronary revascularization. This study has great contribution to strength the evidence of ¹⁸F-FDG PET for detecting viable myocardium. Nuclear approach, including FDG-PET, can be a useful tool to identify viability in case of difficult to diagnose myocardial viability using myocardial perfusion SPECT. (Ann Nucl Cardiol 2016)