Singapore Special Issue of Cardiovascular Imaging Asia

On behalf of my fellow colleagues practicing cardiac imaging in Singapore, we are grateful to the Cardiovascular Imaging Asia (CVIA) editorial office for planning this Singapore special issue. We also appreciate the opportunity that CVIA has given us to showcase cardiac imaging in Singapore.

Since Singapore's independence in 1965 with improvements made to the standard of living, there was a need to design and structure our healthcare system to meet Singapore's demands then and into the future. The Singapore government in the 1970s recognised the need and laid the foundation for medical specialisation and subspecialisation. The first National Heart Centre (known as Singapore Heart Centre) was set up in 1984 and was renamed as the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) in 1998 and is sited on the Singapore General Hospital campus. Given the increasing needs of our nation, a second national heart centre—National University Heart Centre (NUHCS) on the National University Hospital campus was set up in 1998.

Both centres have strong research arms and they collaborate closely on multiple local and international multicentre trials, some of which involve advanced cardiac imaging. Another strength of cardiac imaging in Singapore is the close collaboration and relationship between radiologists and cardiologists and this has led to the flourishing of a strong clinical cardiac imaging service and multiple research projects in both centres. These include international multicentre trials like “International Study of Comparative Health Effectiveness with Medical and Invasive Approaches” (ISCHEMIA), “PASSIvation of Vulnerable Plaque With AZD5718 in AcuTe Coronary syndromE” (PASSIVATE) and local multicentre trials like “Validation of a predictive model of coronary fractional flow reserve in patients with intermediate coronary stenosis,” “Platelet Inhibition to Target Reperfusion Injury” (PITRI), “Integrated Computational modelIing of Right Heart Mechanics and Blood Flow Dynamics in Congenital Heart Disease” (INITIATE) and “AI driven national Platform for CT cOronary angiography for clinicaL and industriaL applicatiOns” (APOLLO). These studies involve advanced cardiac CT & MRI imaging (example 4D flow) and post-processing techniques including artificial intelligence.

This “special” relationship between radiology and cardiology has also enabled successful hosting of the 2nd and 10th Congresses of the Asian Society of Cardiovascular Imaging in Singapore in 2008 and 2016.

In this Singapore-focused issue, cardiac imaging colleagues have reviewed and contributed articles related to the history and education of cardiac imaging in Singapore, congenital heart disease, cardiac amyloidosis and original articles in relation to CT coronary calcium scoring and CT trans-catheter aortic valve implantation. We hope that this issue will benefit our readers and highlight the expansion and advancement of cardiac imaging in Asia.