ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the overall goals for developing hybrid imaging systems, multimodality imaging probes, and integrated hybrid imaging approaches for the evaluation of cardiovascular disease. It discusses a systematic approach for evaluation of new hybrid technologies relevant to assessing the advantage and impact of the new approaches for research and clinical purposes, with the ultimate goal of improvement of health care outcomes. Multimodality hybrid imaging aims to take advantage of the different physical properties of image formation for each imaging modality to create an image set with complementary information. The application of hybrid imaging requires the parallel development of hybrid multimodality imaging probes. Hybrid imaging systems often bring together complimentary technologies that allow for improved image quantification, with the corrections for image resolution, cardiac and respiratory motion, scatter between organs, tissue attenuation, and partial volume errors.
