Scintigraphy for transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis diagnosis in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland from 2021 to 2024. A survey report.

PURPOSE: Bone scintigraphy using technetium-99 m-labelled phosphonates is increasingly applied for imaging of cardiac transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis. However, there is limited data on how frequently this technique is used.

MATERIALS AND

METHODS

To address this issue, we added questions about the number of patients referred for nuclear medicine scanning for suspected cardiac amyloidosis and the proportion of positive results (Perugini score of 2 or 3) to the 2024 survey on myocardial perfusion imaging conducted jointly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

RESULTS

The number of participating institutions in Austria, Germany and Switzerland was 12, 170 and 16, respectively. The number of patients scanned for cardiac amyloidosis was 1487, 4029 and 824 with a positivity-rate of 41%, 37% and 49%.

CONCLUSION

The survey data reveal an increasing diagnostic effort for cardiac amyloidosis from 2021 to 2024, with a similar trend observed in all three countries. The average positivity rate in 2024 was almost 40% vs. about 33% in 2021. The results from 2021 to 2024 across all participants demonstrate improved pre-selection by the referring physicians but also increased awareness and improved training among nuclear medicine physicians.