In this study (1) a large group of 256 patients (150 with know CAD) were evaluated with ammonia-PET for the evaluation of perfusion and coronary flow reserve. Patients were then followed for an average of 5.4 years. The most important findings of this study are 1) CFR allows further risk stratification in patients with normal perfusion and 2) in patients with abnormal perfusion CFR remained predictive for cardiac events.
This is one the few larger scale studies that assessed outcome for both perfusion and CFR assessed with PET. In an additional editorial Beanlands et al (2) discuss further the strengths and limitations of this study and also some pathophysiological issued related to CFR measurements.