Positron emission tomography (PET) has several properties that make it an ideal technology for cardiac imaging. These include high spatial resolution; coincidence detection resulting in excellent count sensitivity and contrast resolution; accurate and reliable correction for soft tissue photon attenuation and scatter; high temporal resolution for measuring rapid changes of radioactivity in arterial blood and myocardium; and the capability to assess tissue radioactivity quantitatively.1 These features translate into good image quality and enable quantification of absolute myocardial blood flow (MBF). Furthermore, low radiation exposure is an intrinsic advantage of cardiovascular PET radiopharmaceuticals.

In recent years, PET technology has been fused with computed tomography (CT). These hybrid devices have gained great popularity, predominantly driven by widely accepted clinical role in oncology, which has led to rapid growth in the number of scanners. This growth in hardware has been paralleled by improvements in availability of radiotracers for perfusion imaging and advances in image processing software. Consequently, cardiac PET has witnessed more widespread use and routine implementation in clinical practice. This article discusses the value of PET in nuclear cardiology in the light of recently published data.