Radionuclide-based insights into the pathophysiology of ischemic heart disease: beyond diagnosis.

This review article discusses the historical origin of cardiac radionuclide-based methods, the physiologic background that justifies their existence, as well as the basic pathophysiologic concepts of coronary artery disease and their connection with the technologic design and application of these methods. Most importantly, this review discusses the important insights that these methods have provided to the understanding of the mechanisms of ischemia, risk stratification, and both treatment choice and treatment efficacy in ischemic heart disease. Nuclear cardiology originated as an attempt to provide complementary physiologic information to the anatomic information provided by coronary angiography.