New Podcast! Is PET the Key to Finally Getting Heart Disease Diagnoses Right for Women?

Episode 13 of JNC CardioConnect highlights the results of the landmark AURORA sub-study, which found F-18 flurpiridaz PET significantly outperformed traditional SPECT imaging in detecting obstructive coronary artery disease in women, with higher accuracy, better image quality, and nearly half the radiation dose.

Hosted by Marcelo F. Di Carli, MD, MASNC (row 1, right), Episode 13 of the JNC CardioConnect podcast featured guests Panithaya Chareonthaitawee, MD, MASNC (row 2, left), Stephen Horgan, MB, BCh, PhD, FASNC (row 1, left), and Jamshid Maddahi, MD, MASNC (row 2, left). 

The podcast features first author Stephen Horgan, MB, BCh PhD, FASNC, and senior author Jamshid Maddahi, MD, MASNC, outlining the results, why F-18 flurpiridaz is “uniquely suited” for evaluating CAD in women, and how “the flurpiridaz advantage” held across the board, including in obesity.

The study’s findings set the stage for a conversation about the challenges that clinicians face in diagnosing women with CAD – both obstructive and microvascular. JNC Deputy Editor Panithaya Chareonthaitawee, MD, MASNC, joined the discussion, emphasizing that “diagnosing women remains one of the most important problems we face.” The high degree of diagnostic confidence with the F-18 flurpiridaz PET imaging “really matters for women,” whose diagnoses are sometimes delayed due to MPI studies that are too often not definitively normal or abnormal.

The availability of F-18 flurpiridaz PET also moves the field toward a future where myocardial perfusion, physiologic assessment from myocardial blood flow quantification, and anatomic insights from CT will be integrated together. This, Dr. Chareonthaitawee predicts, “will move us light-years ahead in terms of management of a very challenging population.”

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