[Ischemic heart disease: anatomic and functional evaluation in a single exploration with multi-slice PET-CT].

A complete evaluation of the patient with ischemic heart disease requires an anatomical and functional assessment of the myocardium and coronary arteries. Recent technological advances have allowed a quantitative and physiological evaluation of the cardiovascular system with Positron Emission Tomography (PET). This method is a valuable tool for the assessment of heart metabolism, myocardial perfusion, ventricular function, coronary blood flow, myocardial viability and endothelial function. One of the major limitations of a PET study is its low spatial resolution. Cardiac Computed Tomography (CCT) is an anatomic study used for coronary calcium quantification, evaluation of wall and lumen of coronary arteries, study of vascular permeability and assessment of composition, extension and severity of atherosclerotic plaques. The main limitation of CCT is the lack of functional information that is obtained with this technique. Both methods are complementary in many ways. That is the reason of the wide spread of PET-CT hybrid equipments that can provide very useful functional and anatomic information of patients with ischemic heart disease in a single exploration.