SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR CARDIOVASCULAR IMAGING, CARDIOVASCULAR FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS, AND DETECTING CORONARY ARTERY DISEASE

摘要

One aspect of the present invention relates to screening patients for an early stage of coronary artery disease. According to this method, a patient is screened based on the time-activity curve for a radioactive tracer passing through a left ventricle region of the patient's body. According to another aspect of the invention, an array of gamma particle detectors is employed to obtain data for a region of interest that is larger than and encompasses a left ventricle region of the patient's body. An analysis of the data identifies the subset of the region of interest that corresponds to the left ventricle region. According to a further aspect of the present invention, a second technique is employed to locate the left ventricle region. A still further aspect of the present invention relates to obtaining images of a patient's heart using a high temporal resolution gamma camera.