Imaging stem cells implanted in infarcted myocardium.

Stem cell-based cellular cardiomyoplasty represents a promising therapy for myocardial infarction. Noninvasive imaging techniques would allow the evaluation of survival, migration, and differentiation status of implanted stem cells in the same subject over time. This review describes methods for cell visualization using several corresponding noninvasive imaging modalities, including magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, single-photon emission computed tomography, and bioluminescent imaging. Reporter-based cell visualization is compared with direct cell labeling for short- and long-term cell tracking.