Radionuclide Imaging in Congestive Heart Failure: Assessment of Viability, Sarcoidosis, and Amyloidosis

Isolated cardiac amyloidosis. Utility of bone seeking tracers scintigraphy in differentiating the subtype of amyloid: A case report

BACKGROUND

Three types of amyloid are responsible for cardiac amyloidosis. Differentiation of the subtype is critical for the disease progression and the therapeutic decision.

RESULTS

Myocardial scintigraphy using Tc-PYP is able to differentiate the cardiac amyloid subtype with high sensitivity and specificity. The myocardial uptake of PYP is higher in patients with TTR amyloidosis.

CONCLUSION

Non-invasive tests for the detection of cardiac amyloidosis, like myocardial scintigraphy with bone seeking tracers, can play a major role in the diagnosis progression and therapeutic management of patients with cardiac amyloidosis.

Cardiac Imaging in Systemic Diseases: What the Clinician should Know

IMPORTANCE

Systemic diseases that affect the cardiovascular system constitute a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for all specialists involved; imaging tools along with clinical suspicion play an essential role in their evaluation. These entities share neurological, immunological, renal, hematologic, oncologic, infectious and endocrine processes, all of which may have associated cardiac involvement.

OBSERVATIONS

Recent advances in cardiac ultrasound, Computed Tomography (CT), cardiac Magnetic Resonance (CMR) and nuclear scintigraphy have impacted the management of these conditions when involving the heart since they provide valuable anatomical and functional information while avoiding the use of invasive techniques. For this review, bibliographic sources were gathered from diverse databases, including PubMed, Cochrane, EBSCO and Google Scholar, concentrating on English language publications dealing with the clinical use of these tools.

CONCLUSION

Clinical suspicion should always guide the use of imaging since in many instances, these techniques only play a supportive role rather than representing a diagnostic gold standard. Early diagnosis is critical due to the fact that cardiac manifestations are commonly a late phenomenon.