PET/CT Study in the Diagnosis of Coronary Plaque

Heart catheterization, in which a thin plastic tube, or catheter, is placed into an artery in the arm or leg and advanced into the heart arteries, is the procedure that you and your doctor have decided to pursue to look for heart artery blockages. It is being performed as part of your standard care and not for research purposes. The research procedure (cardiac PET/CT), which will be performed at a later date is a combination of heart CT (a test that involves the use of x-rays to identify heart artery blockages) and heart PET (an imaging test that uses a radioactive drug to look at how the heart uses fuel (sugar and fats) These tests will be combined (PET/CT) to look for the presence and type of blockage in your heart arteries. It is important to develop a test that can determine if and what type of blockage you have in your heart arteries as the presence and type of heart artery blockage is a very important predictor of heart attack and death from heart attack.