title: Noninvasive method to assess cor pulmonale in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
abstract: In our study of 15 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, we performed myocardial perfusion single-photon-emission computerized tomography (SPECT) with thallium-201 to quantitatively assess right ventricular hypertrophy. On the SPECT images, we determined the ratio of activity in the right-to-left ventricular wall as the thallium score. Right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) was measured by multigated equilibrium radionuclide ventriculography with krypton-81m. Both the thallium scores and RVEF values correlated well with pulmonary arterial pressure (r = 0.65 and r = -0.86, respectively) and permitted the structural and functional assessment of cor pulmonale. When the patients were classified according to the thallium scores and RVEF values, those who had both a high thallium score and reduced RVEF had a significantly high pulmonary arterial pressure and vice versa. The combined evaluation of the thallium score and RVEF enabled accurate noninvasive assessment of cor pulmonale.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001794:Blood Pressure; D006332:Cardiomegaly / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005260:Female; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006439:Hemodynamics; D006801:Humans; D007726:Krypton; D008173:Lung Diseases, Obstructive / Q000150:complications*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011651:Pulmonary Artery / Q000502:physiology; D011660:Pulmonary Heart Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D011669:Pulmonary Wedge Pressure; D011868:Radioisotopes; D013318:Stroke Volume; D013793:Thallium; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed
chemical_list: D011868:Radioisotopes; D007726:Krypton; D013793:Thallium