ABSTRACT
The commonest cardiac applications for imaging multimodality frameworks deal with clinical conditions—the most prevalent being coronary artery disease (CAD)—for which both anatomy and function are necessary for a comprehensive assessment of the disease severity, its spatial distribution and treatment planning. This chapter presents two main approaches for the realization of multimodality imaging frameworks, namely, software versus hardware solution, emphasizing their advantages as well as their drawbacks. It then considers the commonest dual-modality systems and their usage in clinical settings for image fusion. Attenuation correction is the most immediate exemplification of the synergistic role of multimodality imaging. The interpretation of hybrid images requires knowledge of molecular biology and metabolism as well as anatomical imaging. Radiology and nuclear cardiology are distinct imaging specialties: radiology focuses on anatomy and pathology, while nuclear cardiology focuses on biochemistry and pathophysiology.
