Positron emission tomography in cerebrovascular disease

This paper reviews and discusses those aspects of PET that are relevant to its current and future role in the clinical care of individual patients with ischemic cerebrovascular disease. In making a judgement about the value of any diagnostic test in the management of patients with a specific disease, one must decide what criteria to apply. It is tempting to conclude that any test that provides accurate data related to the pathophysiology of the disease under consideration must be clinically useful. This is not necessarily the case, however, if the data do not lead to better patient care by reducing either morbidity and mortality or expense. Such is currently the case for PET in human cerebrovascular disease. The data that PET can provide on CBF, CBV, OEF, and CMRO2 are accurate and are directly related to the pathophysiology of cerebral ischemia. As yet, however, there is no evidence that the application of these data leads to improvements in patient care