Molecular Imaging Techniques of Gene and Cell Heart Failure Therapies: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

Cardiovascular molecular imaging demonstrates an enormous potential to promote the understanding of pathophysiology, risk stratification, therapy monitoring and treatment of heart failure. Applications of molecular imaging in the field of stem cell and gene therapy constitute the only way to investigate their mechanisms of action and adequately evaluate the equivocal clinical results, obtained from human trials at the initial steps of transforming these experimental strategies into therapeutic options, with clear benefits for the patients. In this chapter, the principles and methods of molecular imaging will be presented, focusing on its current status regarding clinical applications in the field of heart failure research, and stem cell and gene therapies, in particular. Finally, we will attempt to present the potential of these promising imaging techniques, which advance in parallel with the transition of stem cell and gene therapy from the research laboratory to the clinical setting of heart failure management.

Keywords: Cell therapy, Gene therapy, Heart failure, Imaging, Molecular, Optical imaging, Positron emission tomography, Single photon emission computed tomography, Tracking, Ultrasound imaging.