Quantification of myocardial blood flow will reform the detection of CAD

The detection of functional consequences of epicardial coronary artery disease (CAD) has established role in guiding the therapy of the disease. In addition, the assessment of impairment in microcirculatory reactivity has recently gained more interest. Estimates of myocardial perfusion contain independent prognostic information about future major cardiac events and perfusion assessment is also useful in the monitoring of the effectiveness of risk reduction strategies. The standard assessment of myocardial perfusion is based on its relative distribution. This approach has obvious limitations since the interpretation is based on the assumption that the best perfused region is normal and can be used as a reference. Using quantification this limitation can be avoided and using absolute parameters instead of relative ones is expected to provide benefits in several clinical scenarios. Despite the recognized potential, the clinical use of absolute quantification has remained scarce. Recently, several imaging techniques have been studied aiming for the quantitative measurement of perfusion. In addition nuclear imaging, magnetic resonance imaging, and echocardiography have been investigated and shown promising preliminary quantitative results. Currently, the most robust technique to quantify perfusion noninvasively in human heart is positron emission tomography (PET). However, although the use of PET in cardiac imaging is rapidly increasing, the image interpretation has still been chiefly based on relative distribution of perfusion. This review is aiming for brief summary of the current knowledge of quantification of myocardial perfusion for the detection of clinical CAD. The aim is to demonstrate the potential of quantification using several real clinical examples where the additional information gained from quantification has significant impact on the clinical findings.