PhD-student: Kasper Pryds (Dept. of Cardiology)

Dept. of Nuclear Medicine & PET Centre: Camilla M. Hoff, Lars Poulsen Tolbod, Kirsten Bouchelouche, Jørgen Frøkiær

Background: Remote ischemic conditioning (RIC) has been shown in experimental models to protect tissue against ischemia-reperfusion injury, thus lowering the extent of injury caused by myocardial infarction and reperfusion. The extent to which RIC affects myocardial blood flow (MBF) in humans with and without coronary artery disease, and whether the effect is similar in myocardial areas with and without decreased blood supply is unknown.

Objectives:  1) To investigate whether RIC increases resting MBF (⁸²Rb PET) in myocardial regions with normal and impaired MBF reserve. 2) To investigate the association between changes in resting MBF and cardio-protection by RIC.