Single Tracer Combined Imaging: the Role of PET/MRI from Research Domain to Clinical Arena.

Purpose of Review: Goal of this review article was to summarize and evaluate the current developments in nuclear medicine cardiovascular imaging with focus on PET/MR imaging. Furthermore, it should highlight recent topics of interest, such as sarcoidosis, inflammation, and cardiac amyloidosis for instance, which have not properly characterized with PET/MRI yet. Recent Findings: In the last years there have been advances in experimental tracers and clinical research especially for inflammatory cardiac diseases. Most articles still focus PET/CT rather than PET/MRI, which is mostly due to a limited number of PET/MRI centers worldwide. Nonetheless, PET/MRI is gaining more importance as a diagnostic tool for cardiac sarcoidosis and cardiac amyloidosis. Summary: A decade after the introduction of commercially available simultaneous PET/MRI scanner, the big breakthrough has stayed away. Still, combined cardiac imaging has shown beneficial performance in various studies. Recent data suggests that in inflammatory diseases, PET and MRI works synergistically. But there are still many unanswered questions, e.g.: Which tracer has the best performance? What is the impact on patient management? Despite that there is great dynamism in that field of research with high potential for PET/MRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]