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A variety of tracers are used for PET scanning, including fluorine-18, rubidium-82, oxygen-15, nitrogen-13, and carbon-11. Because of their short half-life, tracers must be made locally. With the exception of fluorine and rubidium, all the tracers must be manufactured with an on-site cyclotron. The tracers may be coupled to a variety of physiologically active molecules. For example, fluorine-18 is often coupled with fluorodeoxyglucose as a means of detecting glucose metabolism, which in turn reflects the metabolic activity, and thus viability, of the target tissue.

Cardiac PET scanning focuses on 2 distinct clinical situations:

• Myocardial perfusion scanning as a technique of identifying perfusion defects, which in turn reflect coronary artery disease (CAD)
• Assessment of myocardial viability in patients with left ventricular dysfunction as a technique to determine candidacy for a revascularization procedure

This policy focuses on the cardiac applications of PET scanning.

Oncologic Applications of PET scanning are addressed in a separate policy.
Miscellaneous Applications of PET scanning are addressed in a separate policy.

Important Note: 
This policy only addresses the use of radiotracers detected with the use of dedicated PET scanners. Radiotracers such as FDG may be detected using SPECT cameras, a hybrid PET/SPECT procedure that may be referred to as FDG-SPECT or molecular coincidence detection. 

Cardiac PET scanning may be considered medically necessary to assess myocardial perfusion and thus diagnose CAD in patients with indeterminate SPECT scan, or in patients for whom SPECT could be reasonably expected to be suboptimal in quality on the basis of body habitus.

For myocardial perfusion studies, patient selection criteria for PET scans involve an individual assessment of the pretest probability of CAD, based both on patient symptoms and risk factors:

• Patients at low risk for CAD may be adequately evaluated with exercise electrocardiography.
• Patients at high risk for CAD will typically not benefit from non-invasive assessment of myocardial perfusion.
• A negative test will not alter disease probability sufficiently to avoid invasive angiography.
• Myocardial perfusion imaging is potentially beneficial for patients at intermediate risk of CAD (approximately 25% to 75% disease prevalence).

The risk can be estimated using the patient's age, sex, and chest pain quality. The range for intermediate risk can vary.

The following table summarizes a characterization for patient populations at intermediate risk for CAD:

II. For Myocardial Viability:

Cardiac PET scanning may be considered medically necessary to assess the myocardial viability in patients with severe left ventricular dysfunction as a technique to determine candidacy for a revascularization procedure (e.g., PET scans are commonly performed in potential heart transplant candidates to rule out the presence of viable myocardium).

III. Diagnosis of Cardiac Sarcoidosis

Cardiac PET scanning may be considered medically necessary for the diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis in patients who are unable to undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning. Examples of patients who are unable to undergo MRI include, but are not limited to, patients with pacemakers, automatic implanted cardioverter-defibrillators (AICDs), or other metal implants.

For both of these indications, a variety of studies have suggested that PET scans are only marginally more sensitive or specific than SPECT scans. Therefore, the choice between a PET scan (which may not be available locally) and a SPECT scan represents another clinical issue. PET scans may provide the greatest advantage over SPECT scans in obese patients (BMI of 35 kg/m2 or greater) for whom tissue attenuation of tracer is of greater concern. 

The coverage guidelines outlined in the Medical Policy Manual should not be used in lieu of the Member’s specific benefit plan language.

04/20/2010: Policy reviewed. No changes to policy description; statement unchanged. Added additional patient selection criteria to the Policy Guidelines section. Minor typographical errors corrected.

08/23/2011:  The first policy statement was revised to change "in patients who may be prone to artifact that could lead to an indeterminate test, such as severely obese (BMI>35 kg/m2) patients" to "in patients for whom SPECT could be reasonably expected to be suboptimal in quality on the basis of body habitus."  Added medically necessary policy statement regarding diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis.

09/25/2012: Policy reviewed; no changes.

05/07/2013: Removed ICD-9 procedure code 87.42 from the Code Reference section.

The code(s) listed below are ONLY covered if the procedure is performed according to the "Policy" section of this document.

A PET scan essentially involves 3 separate activities:
1. Manufacture of the radiopharmaceutical, which may be manufactured on site or manufactured at a regional delivery center with delivery to the institution performing PET
2. Actual performance of the PET scan, and
3. Interpretation of the results

When the radiopharmaceutical is provided by an outside distribution center, there may be an additional separate charge, or this charge may be passed through and included in the hospital bill. In addition, there will likely be an additional transportation charge for radiopharmaceuticals that are not manufactured on site.

Covered Codes        

This is not an all-inclusive list of non-covered procedure codes.

The code(s) listed below and ANY code not listed in the previous section are considered non-covered for this procedure.

Non-Covered Codes        

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