Abstract
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in developed countries, as well as in many developing countries. The prevalence of heart disease is increasing with increasing life expectancy and gains in socioeconomic conditions. In many patients with no clinical history suggestive of heart problems, heart disease strikes unexpectedly in the form of myocardial infarction or sudden death. Therefore, apart from its efforts to prevent heart disease by controlling risk factors, the medical community has strived to improve the early detection of heart disease, especially of the asymptomatic form or “silent ischemia,” to avert its potential consequences.
Nuclear cardiology tests to study myocardial perfusion and ventricular function have developed into indispensable tools for the diagnosis and evaluation of heart disease.
Heart disease is caused by arteriosclerosis in the epicardial vessels; this systemic disorder of metabolic origin causes progressive narrowing of sections of the vascular lumen. Even in cases with severe stenoses in which the vascular lumen is reduced by 80 or 90%, coronary blood flow seems sufficient to enable functional contractility when the patient is at rest; however, when metabolic demand increases, less severe stenoses can cause ischemia due to the disequilibrium between the supply and the demand of oxygen.
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Jiménez-Hoyuela García, J.M., Lozano, S.O., Torres, D.M.d.V., Cardo, A.G., Moreno, E.R. (2010). Nuclear Cardiology. In: Ribes, R., Kuschnir, P., Luna, A., Vilanova, J.C., Jimenez-Hoyuela, J.M. (eds) Learning Cardiac Imaging. Learning Imaging. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-79084-6_5
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