E. Van Der Wall – författare

Since the introduction of myocardial perfusion imaging and radionuclide angiography in the mid-seventies, cardiovascular nuclear medicine has undergone an explosive growth. The use of nuclear cardiology techniques has become one of the cornerstones of the noninvasive assessment of coronary artery disease. In the past 15 years major steps have been made from visual analysis to quantitative analysis, from planar imaging to tomographic imaging, from detection of disease to prognosis, and from separate evaluations of perfusion, metabolism, and function to an integrated assessment of myocardial viability. In recent years many more advances have been made in cardiovascular nuclear imaging, such as the development of new imaging agents, reevaluation of existing procedures, and new clinical applications. This book describes the most recent developments in nuclear cardiology and also addresses new contrast agents in MRI. What's New in Cardiac Imaging will assist the clinical cardiologist, the cardiology fellow, the nuclear medicine physician, and the radiologist in understanding the most recent achievements in clinical cardiovascular nuclear imaging.

In Groningen there has been a continuous investigation of hypertrophic cardio­ myopathy for almost twenty years. Members of this working-group have tried to study the many aspects of this intriguing disease, and it is in this volume that they present their recent results and current concepts (chapters 2, 3, 5 and 6). A contribution from the Dutch interuniversity Institute of Cardiology presenting a detailed account of evaluation by means of radionuclide techniques completes the non-invasive picture of cardiomyopathies (chapter 4). On July 6th, 1984, a symposium entitled ''Recent views on hypertrophic cardio­ myopathy'' was held at the University Hospital Groningen. The main reason to organize this meeting was the retirement of one of our working-group members, namely E. van der Wall, as head of the cardiological department. The speakers at the symposium presented their lectures based on their contributions to this book. It is an honour for us to have obtained their full cooperation for this book and for the symposium. We are very grateful that this Groningen manifestation could include the outstanding contributions of several well-known experts from abroad. We there­ fore thank our colleagues Profs. Epstein, Goodwin, Kaltenbach and Schulte for their spontaneous and valuable cooperation (chapters 1, 7,8 and 9). Thanks to their efforts especially, this book has acquired the international character that the study of this subject deserves.