The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) and three partner societies have offered new guidelines for the use of CT in hybrid nuclear/CT cardiac imaging, as published September 2 in the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology.
The guidelines are intended to answer cardiac imagers' questions and guide them on SPECT/CT and PET/CT imaging with attenuation correction, localization of radiotracer uptake, and coronary artery calcium scoring, the ASNC said. The ASNC collaborated with the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging on developing the guide.
A figure from the new guidelines showing proper co-registration of a PET image onto a CT attenuation correction scan. Image courtesy of the ASNC.The new guidelines also provide recommendations for training and competency requirements for imaging physicians and technologists, describe models for collaborative, cross-specialty study interpretation and reporting, and suggest solutions for the preauthorization and reimbursement challenges that some labs may face with hybrid imaging in nuclear cardiology, the ASNC said.
Key concepts in the new guideline will be discussed during the ASNC's 2022 annual meeting in a symposium being held on September 8 featuring experienced hybrid imagers who have used different hardware, software, and models in their labs.
