Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI), or put simply the imaging of the blood flow in the heart muscle, plays an important role in diagnosing heart failure. Imaging systems like CT, SPECT, or PET can visualise a (radioactive) contrast bolus in the coronary arteries whose flow can give an indication of narrowed or blocked arteries.
The variety of imaging systems, various manufacturers, differences in the used hardware and software, and differences in contrast bolus concentration and amount can all lead to different outcomes that can affect patient treatment. Validation and standardisation of multimodal MPI are therefore vital to ensure proper and timely care.
In this project, I will aid in the development of a perfusion phantom set-up to reliably and repeatably perform perfusion experiments to evaluate the influence of, among other, the previously mentioned parameters.