Imaging techniques for myocardial inflammation
Dilated cardiomyopathy (DC) represents a heterogeneous group of disorders which results in morbidity and mortality in young individuals. Recent evidence suggests that a subset of these patients have histologic evidence of myocarditis which is potentially treatable with immunosuppression. The identification of myocardial inflammation may therefore lead to development of therapeutic regimens designed to treat the cause rather than the effect of the myocardial disease. Ultimately, this may result in improvement in the abysmal prognosis of DC. The currently accepted technique for identification of active myocardial inflammation is endomyocardial biopsy. This technique is not perfect, however, since pathologic standards for the diagnosis of myocarditis have not been established. Furthermore, focal inflammation may give rise to sampling error. The inflammation-avid radioisotope gallium-67 citrate has been used as an adjunct to biopsy improving the yield of myocarditis from 7 percent to 36 percent. Serial imaging correlates well to biopsy results. Future studies are designed to study the applicability of lymphocyte labelling techniques to myocardial inflammatory disease.
- Research Organization:
- Loyola Univ. Medical Center, Maywood, IL
- OSTI ID:
- 5680006
- Journal Information:
- Ann. Clin. Lab. Sci.; (United States), Vol. 2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES
DIAGNOSIS
MYOCARDIUM
INFLAMMATION
BIOPSY
GALLIUM 67
HEART
RADIOISOTOPE SCANNING
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BODY
CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEM
COUNTING TECHNIQUES
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES
DISEASES
ELECTRON CAPTURE RADIOISOTOPES
GALLIUM ISOTOPES
INTERMEDIATE MASS NUCLEI
ISOTOPES
MUSCLES
NUCLEI
ODD-EVEN NUCLEI
ORGANS
PATHOLOGICAL CHANGES
RADIOISOTOPES
SYMPTOMS
550601* - Medicine- Unsealed Radionuclides in Diagnostics