Imaging of Regional Myocardial Perfusion and Function

描述（由申请人提供）： 心血管疾病是美国发病率和死亡率的主要原因。预计到2020年，它将首次超过传染病，成为世界上主要的死亡原因。与此同时，发达国家寿命的延长导致了这一疾病的流行，尽管在预防和治疗方面取得了重大进展。患有不同形式心血管疾病的患者数量之多，使得在逻辑上不可能使用侵入性程序进行诊断。因此，对非侵入性方法检测早期疾病的需求从未如此重要。 近年来，心血管成像的技术进步导致其使用增加。 核心脏病学和超声心动图现在是临床实践中常用的成熟技术。磁共振成像（MRI）以及螺旋CT也开始在心血管疾病的临床评估中发挥作用。然而，令人遗憾的是，在这些领域具有深入专业知识的医生和其他技术人员的数量仍然不足。在大多数心脏病学培训项目中，越来越多的强调侵入性程序，导致学员对非侵入性成像的知识非常肤浅。即使受训者在非侵入性实验室中花费大量时间，他们也可能仅在其中一种成像模式中发展专业知识。 弗吉尼亚大学是美国少数几个在所有形式的心脏成像方面拥有高水平专业知识的中心之一，并且在这些模式中培训医生的记录。这些医生中的许多人目前全职从事学术工作，并经营自己的实验或临床实验室。 该拨款提案的目的是开发一个研究培训计划，该计划将提供所有三种模式的综合培训：核心脏病学，超声心动图和MRI，特别强调冠状动脉疾病，这是所有参与培训计划的教师的主要研究兴趣。同样的重点将放在成像技术方面以及生理学和病理生理学。最终目标是培养未来心血管成像领域的学术带头人。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cardiovascular disease is the major cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. It is anticipated that by 2020 it will become the major cause of death in the world, surpassing infectious disease for the first time. At the same time, increasing longevity in the developed world is contributing to a greater prevalence of this disease despite major advances in its prevention and treatment. The sheer number of patients with different forms of cardiovascular disease makes it logistically impossible to use invasive procedures to make a diagnosis. The need for noninvasive methods to detect early disease has therefore never been as crucial. Technical advances in cardiovascular imaging have resulted in their increased use over the years. Nuclear cardiology and echocardiography are now mature technologies that are commonly used in clinical practice. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as well as helical CT has also started to play a role in the clinical assessment of cardiovascular disease. Nonetheless, the number of physicians and other technical personnel who have in-depth expertise in these fields is sadly lacking. In most cardiology training programs, increased emphasis on invasive procedures results in the production of trainees with a very superficial knowledge of noninvasive imaging. Even if a trainee spends a substantial amount of time in noninvasive laboratories, they are likely to develop expertise in only one of the imaging modalities. The University of Virginia is one of a handful of centers in the U.S. that have high-level expertise in all forms of cardiac imaging as well as a track record of training physicians in these modalities. Many of these physicians are currently full time in academics and are running their own experimental or clinical laboratories. The purpose of this grant proposal is to develop a research training program that will provide comprehensive training in all three modalities: nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, and MRI with particular emphasis placed on coronary artery disease, which is the primary research interest of all the faculty who will participate in the training program. Equal emphasis will be placed on the technical aspects of imaging as well as on physiology and pathophysiology. The ultimate aim is to train individuals who will become tomorrow's academic leaders in cardiovascular imaging.