Molecular Imaging in Ischemic Heart Disease

Purpose of Review The purpose of this paper is to review current and new modalities to image key biological processes in
ischemic heart disease and after myocardial infarction non-invasively.
Recent Findings New imaging targets have been developed to detect and quantify myocardial damage after ischemia. Although
positron emission tomography (PET) has been leading the development of new probes in the past, continuous improvements of
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) together with the development of new novel MRI contrast agents opens new research
avenues including the combination of both PET and MRI to obtain anatomic, functional, and molecular information simultaneously,
which is not possible from a single imaging session.
Summary This review summarizes the state of art of non-invasive molecular imaging of the myocardium during ischemia and
after myocardial infarction using PETand MRI.We also describe the different contrast agents that have been developed to image
the different phases of cardiac healing and the biological processes associated with each of those phases. Importantly, here we
focus on imaging of inflammation as it is the key biological process that orchestrates clearance of dead cells, tissue remodeling,
cardiac repair, and future outcome.We also focus on clinical translation of some of the novel contrast agents that have been tested
in patients and discuss the need for larger, multi-center patient studies to fully validate the applicability of new imaging probes.