Title:

Measuring Left-Ventricular Dyssynchrony by Phase Analysis of Gated SPECT Myocardial Perfusion Imaging

Speaker:

Dr. Ji Chen

Affiliation:

Emory

When:

Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 11:00:00 AM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Boggs Building, Room 3-47 (3rd flr)

Host:

Dr. Lei Zhu
lei.zhu@me,gatech.edu
5-3882

Abstract

Heart failure affects more than 6 million people in the United States, and the number increases by more than 0.5 million every year. Acute decompensated heart failure accounts for over one million hospital admissions per year, and the estimated direct and indirect cost for heart failure in 2009 is more than $30 billion. Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has been approved by FDA as a treatment of heart failure patients refractory to conventional therapy. However, 20-40% of the patients who selected for CRT based on the conventional criteria do not respond to CRT. We developed a quantitative technique, phase analysis, which automatically measure left ventricular dyssynchrony from gated myocardial perfusion SPECT studies. We have validated this technique and shown that it can reproducibly predict the response to CRT in patients with heart failure induced conduction disturbances and ventricular dyssynchrony. This lecture will introduce the technical background of phase analysis, demonstrate the tool with patient examples, and discuss its clinical indications and future directions.

Biography

Dr. Ji Chen received his B.S. degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing, CHINA in 1999 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA, from 1999-2002. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, from 2003-2004 and then an Assistant Professor of Radiology of Emory University from 2005-2010. He is now an Associate Professor of Radiology of Emory University. Dr. Chen’s major area of research is related to nuclear cardiac imaging. His innovative technology, phase analysis, allows nuclear imaging to assess left ventricular dyssynchrony and opens a completely new research and clinical area that relates nuclear cardiology to heart failure and cardiac resynchronization therapy. With this innovation, he received the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology Research Award for Basic and Applied Science in 2006. Dr. Chen is an author of 24 peer-reviewed papers, 12 invited review papers, 6 symposium articles, 5 book chapters, and 66 abstracts. He has given 28 invited lectures at international conferences and research institutions. Dr. Chen currently holds an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health, aiming to establish his phase analysis technology for predicting response to cardiac resynchronization therapy in heart failure patients.

Notes

Refreshments will be served.