Models in Nuclear Cardiology

The tale of Gamma photons from the heart

Authors
Affiliations

Adam Istvan Szucs

Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary)

Bela Kari

Semmelweis University (Hungary)

Adam Zlehovszky

Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary)

Published

December 10, 2024

Introduction

Nuclear cardiology use noninvasive technqiues to assess the myocardial metabolism, evaluate the pumping function of the heart as well as visualize the size and location of the metabolic deficiency.

Why is it called nuclear?

The imaging is based on capturing the incident radiation from the injected radiopharmaceuticals. The method is labaled “nuclear” because the gamma photons are the result of radiactive decay.

Is it dangerous?

They are completely safe and the uptake and radiation exposure during a heart scan is usually around 1.5 mSv, which compared to the yearly background radiation exposure 2.4 mSv, is negligible.

Single-photon emission computed tomography

During this class, we will focus building models to solve problems in Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).

Visualization

Base materials

The motivation and the archetype of this class is written in oftankonyv.