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VIDEO: Athena Poppas, MD, reviews imaging modalities, underscores importance of integration
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ORLANDO, Fla. — Athena Poppas, MD, associate professor of medicine at Brown University and director of CV imaging at LifeSpan Cardiovascular Institute in Providence, Rhode Island, provides key takeaways on various imaging modalities from the annual American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
“It’s really important to integrate how the different modalities are situated with regards to different clinical scenarios … so that we can decide which modality to choose for which patient and in which situation,” she said.
Poppas summarizes the characteristics of stress echocardiography and highlights the improved diagnostic accuracy seen with contrast echocardiography and potential advances in sensitivity with tissue Doppler and strain rate techniques.
She also touches on the “dramatically” reduced radiation exposure with nuclear imaging and vast “one-stop shopping” capabilities with MRI.
“The new technologies are solving not only the day-to-day question, ‘Does the patient have coronary disease?’ but they can each in a different way solve the question, ‘Are we treating the patient adequately who has ischemia?’”
Poppas said the techniques are also answering mechanistic questions, from viability to prognostication and, potentially, guiding revascularization.