Application and progress of SPECT in patients with lower extremity artery disease / 中华核医学与分子影像杂志

ABSTRACT

Lower extremity artery disease (LEAD) is a progressive atherosclerotic process that results in progressive limb ischemia leading to life-altering claudication, nonhealing ulcers, limb amputation, which reduces the patient′s quality of life and even threatens life. SPECT can provide noninvasive quantitative evaluation of lower extremity blood perfusion with high sensitivity, and has advantages on patient management, such as early detection, severity evaluation, treatment protocol development and therapeutic effect monitoring. Moreover, radionuclide-labeled molecular targeting imaging agents can directly show ischemia-induced angiogenesis. This article reviews the application and progress of SPECT in LEAD.