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The recent advent of positron emission tomography (PET) scanners that can image the entire human body opens up intriguing possibilities for cardiovascular research and future clinical applications. These new systems permit radiotracer kinetics to be measured in all organs simultaneously. They are particularly well suited to study cardiovascular disease and its effects on the entire body. They could also play a role in quantitatively measuring physiologic, metabolic, and immunologic responses in healthy individuals to a variety of stressors and lifestyle interventions, and may ultimately be instrumental for evaluating novel therapeutic agents and their molecular effects across different tissues. In this review, we summarize recent progress in PET technology and methodology, discuss several emerging cardiovascular applications for total-body PET, and place this in the context of multiorgan and systems medicine. Finally, we discuss opportunities that will be enabled by the technology, while also pointing to some of the challenges that still need to be addressed. [Display omitted] • Newly developed total-body PET scanners provide opportunities for imaging the entire cardiovascular system simultaneously. • Dynamic imaging of the entire human body at high detection sensitivity and spatial resolution is now possible. • Applications include quantitative total-body imaging of perfusion, blood volume, and metabolism. • Further opportunities are presented by new tracers that target, eg, fibrosis and CD8+ T-cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Lentiviral Vector Gene Transfer in Monkeys: In Vivo Detection of Gene Expression Longitudinally Using MicroPET and Optical Imaging," by Alice F. Tarantal, Chang I. Lee, Daniel F. Jimenez, Sanjiv S. Gambhir, Donald B. Kohn, John J. Rossi and Simon R. Cherry is presented.