Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is the main cause of morbidity and mortality in the developed world. Despite advances and new developments in primary and secondary prevention, the prevalence of the disease and its complications remain high. Early detection has been shown to reduce significantly the risk of cardiac events such as myocardial infarction and death, while modern cardiology now provides specialists and general physicians with a variety of procedures for the assessment of IHD using noninvasive methods. This book reviews the currently available imaging techniques for the diagnosis and management of IHD. In addition, the role of cardiac imaging for the detection of viability and hibernation is discussed in detail. A series of highly illustrated cases is included on the CD-ROM to illustrate the applications and rationale behind the use of cardiac imaging for the evaluation of patients with IHD in different clinical scenarios.

Dr C. D. Anagnostopoulos is working at the Royal Brompton Hospital, he is an ex-president of the British Nuclear Cardiology Society and Guest Editor to the HEART journal. Dr Nihoyannopoulos is Secretary of the European Working Group on Echocardiography and Deputy Editor of the Eur J Echocardiography. He is currently the head of the Echocardiography laboratories at Hammersmith Hospital. Professor Jeroen Bax (Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands). Professor Ernst Van der Wall (Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands) is an extremely influential name in cardiac imaging. He has written or edited numerous cardiac imaging books and is one of the most respected names in the field.