Ijaz Ahmad on the Role of Cardiac PET in Detecting Coronary Artery Disease

Magnific Magnific Coronary artery disease can be maddeningly difficult to catch early. Even well-established imaging tools have real limits when it comes to spotting blockages that are still small or scattered across more than one vessel.

Cardiac PET is one of the more advanced tools cardiologists have for pushing past those limits. Ijaz Ahmad has identified it as central to where diagnostic cardiology is heading next.

As founder and medical director of Park Slope Cardiac & Diagnostic Center in Brooklyn, Ahmad has built a career around non-invasive and nuclear cardiology.

His professional focus now includes cardiac PET program development and diagnostic strategy specifically.

Understanding what actually separates PET imaging from other cardiac imaging tools goes a long way toward explaining why he has invested so much of his own continuing education here.

Both cardiac PET and a standard nuclear stress test rely on the same underlying idea, tracking a small amount of injected tracer as it travels through the bloodstream. That tracer reveals how well blood is actually reaching the heart muscle.

Where the two diverge is in the imaging technology itself.

PET, short for positron emission tomography, relies on tracers and detection methods capable of producing sharper, higher-resolution images than older nuclear techniques.

It can also measure blood flow in precise, quantifiable terms rather than relying on a visual comparison between one region of the heart and another.

That higher resolution and quantification tend to matter most in cases where disease is still early.

Cardiac PET is one of the most advanced and accurate stress tests available.

It is usually quick and comfortable for patients, and it gives us clear images while measuring how well blood flows to the heart muscle.

Its sensitivity is often around 85% to 90%. In everyday terms, that means it may detect significant coronary artery disease in about 85 to 90 out of 100 people who truly have it.

PET generally provides more accurate information than a traditional SPECT nuclear scan and can reveal blood flow problems that a regular treadmill test may miss.

The exact accuracy varies by patient and by how the test is performed, so a cardiologist will choose the test that best answers your particular question.

Coronary artery disease tends to develop gradually and often across more than one vessel at a time, with the degree of blockage varying from one vessel to the next.

A tool capable of quantifying blood flow with real precision gives a physician a much clearer sense of exactly how much flow is reduced, and in which specific territory of the heart that reduction is happening.

That is a meaningful advantage over a broader impression of where a problem might exist.

That level of detail can genuinely change how a case gets managed. A patient with one small, isolated area of reduced flow may end up managed quite differently from a patient whose scan reveals more diffuse disease spread across several vessels. This can be true even if the two patients would have looked nearly identical on a less sensitive test.

Ijaz Ahmad has pointed to advanced imaging like cardiac PET, alongside artificial intelligence and precision medicine, as part of the toolkit that makes this kind of individualized risk assessment possible.

That is a departure from a one-size-fits-all approach to coronary disease.

Ahmad’s clinical foundation runs deep in cardiovascular imaging generally, well beyond nuclear cardiology alone.

He is board certified in cardiovascular disease, echocardiography, nuclear cardiology, and internal medicine.

He also holds Fellow status with the American College of Cardiology, a credential that reflects years of advanced training and demonstrated commitment to the field.

Earlier in his career, he completed a research fellowship in cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging at New York Methodist Hospital.

His work there touched on diastolic function, coronary artery disease, right ventricular function, and myocardial fibrosis.

That early research experience gave him exposure to the value of advanced, quantifiable cardiac imaging well before cardiac PET became a focus of his professional development in its own right.

That progression, from research into cardiac magnetic resonance imaging to a later focus on cardiac PET, reflects a consistent interest in whatever imaging technology offers the most precise picture of risk, rather than loyalty to any single method.

His biography lists cardiac PET program development and diagnostic strategy as an active area of focus today.

That sits alongside his continued investment in preventive cardiology, artificial intelligence in healthcare, and physician leadership.

Ahmad has approached PET as the next logical extension of the same non-invasive, prevention-oriented philosophy that has shaped his practice since it was first founded.

New imaging technology can easily be adopted for its own sake, without much thought for how it actually changes patient outcomes.

Ahmad has instead tied his interest in cardiac PET directly to the same goals that shaped his practice from the start, catching disease earlier and tailoring care more precisely to each patient’s actual risk.

Cardiac PET sits alongside non-invasive cardiology, nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, vascular testing, and stress testing as part of a broader effort to give patients an accurate, early read on their cardiovascular risk.

He has said he believes medicine must shift decisively toward prevention and early diagnosis.

In his own framing, advanced imaging tools are part of how that shift becomes possible in everyday clinical practice, rather than staying confined to research settings most patients will never encounter.

That framing shows up most clearly in how he talks about individual patients rather than disease in the abstract.

Two patients with the same general diagnosis can have very different underlying pictures once cardiac PET is involved, and that difference is exactly what shapes how each of them gets treated going forward.

For Ahmad, the value of a tool like this comes down to precision. Catching coronary artery disease earlier, and more precisely, gives patients more options and meaningfully better outcomes than waiting for symptoms to force the issue on their own.

That emphasis on precision extends to how he talks about the future of cardiovascular care more broadly.