摘要
Coronary artery disease （CAD） is one of the leading causes of death in the US and a substantial health-care burden in all industrialized societies. In recent years we have witnessed a constant strive towards the development and the clinical application of novel or improved detection methods as well as therapies. Particularly, noninvasive imaging is a decisive component in the cardiovascular field. Image fusion is the ability of combining into a sin- gle integrated display the anatomical as well as the physiological data retrieved by separated modalities. Clinical evidence suggests that it represents a promising strategy in CAD assessment and risk stratification by significantly improving the diagnostic power of each modality independently considered and of the traditional side-by-side in- terpretation. Numerous techniques and approaches taken from the image registration field have been implemented and validated in the context of CAD assessment and management. Although its diagnostic power is widely ac- cepted, additional technical developments are still needed to become a routinely used clinical tool.
Coronary artery disease （CAD） is one of the leading causes of death in the US and a substantial health-care burden in all industrialized societies. In recent years we have witnessed a constant strive towards the development and the clinical application of novel or improved detection methods as well as therapies. Particularly, noninvasive imaging is a decisive component in the cardiovascular field. Image fusion is the ability of combining into a sin- gle integrated display the anatomical as well as the physiological data retrieved by separated modalities. Clinical evidence suggests that it represents a promising strategy in CAD assessment and risk stratification by significantly improving the diagnostic power of each modality independently considered and of the traditional side-by-side in- terpretation. Numerous techniques and approaches taken from the image registration field have been implemented and validated in the context of CAD assessment and management. Although its diagnostic power is widely ac- cepted, additional technical developments are still needed to become a routinely used clinical tool.
