title: Thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy in patients with triple-vessel disease and ischemic exercise stress tests.
abstract: Thirty patients with triple-vessel coronary artery disease proven by angiography, symptomatic angina and a positive ECG stress test were evaluated with thallium-201 (201TI) scintigraphy. Twenty patients also had aortocoronary saphenous vein bypass surgery; 15 of them had repeat noninvasive evaluation. Seventy percent of these patients showed ischemia by 201TI scintigraphy, of which one-half returned to normal after surgery. Postoperative reversion of the ECG stress test together with 201TI stress/reperfusion imaging correlated well with the completeness of surgical revascularization. We could not explain the prevalence (80%) of infarcts detected by 201TI in this group, of which 76% could be anatomically correlated to epicardial scars. The positivity of infarcts by 201TI exceeded that predicted by previous history of infarction, Q waves on resting ECG or ventriculographic akinesis. These observations suggest that 201TI scintigraphy is a useful noninvasive tool in the follow-up and understanding of patients with coronary heart disease. These conclusions also support the concept that 201TI stress imaging need not have the identical connotation as the ECG stress test.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006321:Heart / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007511:Ischemia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000175:diagnosis; D011868:Radioisotopes; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D013793:Thallium
chemical_list: D011868:Radioisotopes; D013793:Thallium