Applications and software techniques for integrated cardiac multimodality imaging.

Several imaging technologies are available for diagnostic cardiac imaging, such as coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Each of these techniques offers unique advantages, but also suffers from specific limitations. Software techniques are being developed to combine cardiac images from different modalities and generate composite multimodality images, allowing better diagnosis than that possible from images analyzed separately. Hybrid scanners (SPECT/CT and PET/CT) have also been proposed for integrated cardiac imaging. Physicians are presented with integrated fused images that contain complementary information from separate scans containing physiological and anatomical information. In this review, we present the latest approaches for integration of cardiac images from multiple modalities.