The application of 15O-water for cardiac PET perfusion imaging was one of
the main goals when this tracer was developed. However, the development of a method
from basic research to routine tool in clinical work takes a long time. With the case of
cardiac 15O-water PET it took 22-27 years from the initial plans to clinically accepted
tool. This is likely not unusual as the validation of new method and demonstrating the
clinical impact requires many studies and a long time. Eventually, the method has been
now included in the European clinical guidelines of chronic coronary syndromes as an
accepted clinical tool. This paper illustrates the development of the cardiac 15O-water
PET at Turku PET Centre, one of the pioneers in developing the method from bench to
bedside. Despite the current success, there are still many open issues, which warrant
further development and studies.
Keywords: Coronary artery disease, Cyclotron, Diabetes, Fractional flow reserve, Heart, Hypertension, Myocardium, Oxygen-15, Perfusion, Positron emission tomography, Quantitation.
