RT Book, Section A1 Berman, Daniel S. A1 Hachamovitch, Rory A1 Shaw, Leslee J. A1 Hayes, Sean W. A1 Slomka, Piotr J. A1 Germano, Guido A1 Narula, Jagat A2 Fuster, Valentin A2 Harrington, Robert A. A2 Narula, Jagat A2 Eapen, Zubin J. SR Print(0) ID 1161726382 T1 NUCLEAR CARDIOLOGY T2 Hurst's The Heart, 14e YR 2017 FD 2017 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9780071843249 LK accesscardiology.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1161726382 RD 2024/10/10 AB Nuclear cardiology is an integral part of routine cardiovascular practice. This chapter provides a synopsis of nuclear cardiology procedures and the published evidence of their role in the diagnosis, risk assessment, and management of patients with suspected or known coronary artery disease (CAD). In the technical section, the focus is on single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) since positron emission tomography (PET) is the subject of Chapter 19. Guidelines and appropriate use criteria combine SPECT and PET, and considerations of the applications are similar; therefore, the clinical portions of this chapter discuss both approaches. While nuclear cardiology has a broad potential role in molecular imaging, myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) with SPECT and PET makes up the vast majority of current clinical nuclear cardiology procedures; hence, MPI is the primary subject of this chapter. In the chapter, CAD generally refers to the presence of an obstructive stenosis, in contradistinction to coronary atherosclerosis, which is used to denote the presence of any atherosclerotic plaque in the coronary arteries. The term nuclear MPI will be used when the discussion refers to both SPECT and PET-MPI approaches.