Cardiovascular nuclear medicine emerged 15 years ago as a new noninvasive technique for the detection of human cardiac disease. It arised from the fields of nuclear medicine and cardiology and the cooperation of both specialties has been very productive. At present, nuclear cardiology techniques belong to the routine armamentarium of the clinical cardiologist. Results obtained by perfusion markers, metabolic tracers, and radionuclide angiography have shown to have important impact on patient management. Although exercise electrocardiography and echocar diography yield the large bulk of necessary data in the cardiac patient, nuclear cardiology provides important data that go far beyond the results obtained by the standard procedures. Magnetic resonance imaging is a relative newcomer in cardio logy and has still to prove its value in clinical cardiology . Yet, initial results have been encouraging both in congenital heart disease and in coronary artery disease. This book is based on 16 review publications that have been written throughout the period of 1985 till present time. Most chapters have been published in the period 1989 until 1991; the preceding review papers have been updated as much as possible. Furthermore, Chapter 15 entitled" What's new in cardiac imaging" has been espe cially written for this book. The Chapters 9, 11 and 13 have been recently written and have not been published yet.
