Current Diagnostic Methods in Molecular and Nuclear Cardiology

Recently, the concept of precision medicine-based disease has attracted wide attention of clinicians and medical researchers around the world. Cardiac diseases can be investigated using increasingly non-invasive techniques. Nuclear cardiology is booming in the 21st century and has become vital to the current day practice of cardiology and led to the development of molecular imaging techniques. Molecular imaging has emerged as the frontier of imaging in nuclear cardiology with its ability to provide a greater description of specific processes and mechanisms of cardiovascular disease pathophysiology based on conventional imaging. Imaging can noninvasively quantify these molecular targets and provide incremental value in the selection of appropriate patient populations for further diagnostic options, risk stratification, and therapeutic guidance. However, cardiovascular molecular imaging currently has many challenges, reflecting in the imaging techniques and interpretation methods etc. Developing new methods and optimizing the current methods of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging in cardiology are dearly needed.

In this research topic, we want to create a forum to investigate and explore the value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging in the diagnosis, risk stratification, treatment guidance and prognosis evaluation in heart disease, and to explore the mechanisms behind it and propose clinical application prospects. Meanwhile, we also hope that researchers will contribute to the exploration of new techniques and methods for nuclear cardiology and molecular imaging related research. Topics that focus on the improvements in equipment technology, adjustments in image processing, optimization of statistical methods, and the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms to improve and solve some of the problems that currently exist in this field are welcome.

We welcome the following topics but are not limited to:
- Nuclear cardiology and molecular imaging - emerging technologies that go beyond traditional non-invasive or invasive examinations.
- A new way to examine myocardial ischemia - using nuclear medicine and molecular imaging techniques.
- Applications of nuclear medicine and optimization of molecular imaging processes.
- The value of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging techniques in the diagnosis and treatment of coronary heart disease.
- Noninvasive imaging of heart disease: differences between genders and age groups
- Risk stratification, treatment guidance and prognostic assessment of patients in the process of diagnosis and treatment of myocardial ischemia.
- New techniques applied to coronary microvascular dysfunction and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.
- Machine learning and artificial intelligence in nuclear cardiology and molecular imaging.

Keywords: cardiology, nuclear medicine, molecular imaging, diagnosis, risk stratification

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