Chapter 7. Heart

Owing to the great technological progress of the last few years, combined with the possibility of using short-lived radioisotopes, nuclear medicine has made new strides in cardiology from both the morphological and kinetic viewpoints. Kinetic studies are described first: cardiac output measurements, radiocardiography, coronary output measurements. This is followed by a study of morphological tests: static using scintigraphic methods, then dynamic with stationary detectors. It is shown that the addition of a data processing unit to the stationary detectors allows the development of analytical methods similar to conventional kinetic tests and opens up vast possibilities for the future. For the analysis of these methods the techniques considered are as far as possible based on the external detection of radiation emitted by a radioactive tracer after simple intraveinous injection, without catheterization. In this field the use of radioisotopes in cardiology offers the means of performing simple investigations which, being harmless for the patient, incur no loss of blood and can be repeated easily and often