title: Improvement in transient and 'persistent' perfusion defects on early and late post-exercise thallium-201 tomograms after coronary artery bypass grafting.
abstract: In order to assess the changes in the number and severity of transient and persistent myocardial perfusion defects before and after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), early and late post-exercise thallium-201 (tl-201) tomography was performed in 25 patients, on average 10 days before and 2.5 months after CABG. Six patients had a previous Q wave myocardial infarction. Comparing the pre- and post-CABG exercise test data (symptom limited bicycle ergometry) showed an improvement in working capacity (from 129 +/- 34 to 145 +/- 35 W, P less than 0.05) and a reduction in exercise induced angina from 77 to 9% of the patients (P less than 0.001). From the tomographic data, six short axis and three sagittal cross-sections of the left ventricular myocardium were reconstructed. In each patient study, a total of 51 myocardial segments were defined and analysed in a semi-quantitative manner by means of a five point scoring method indicative of the severity of a defect (from 0 = normal tl-201 uptake to 4 = absence of tl-201 activity). In this patient population the total number of segments with transient tl-201 perfusion defects decreased from 11.0 +/- 7 segments per patient (mean +/- SD) before surgery to 4.9 +/- 4 after surgery (P less than 0.01); the number of segments with 'persistent' tl-201 defects decreased as well, from 7.5 +/- 6 to 3.9 +/- 4 segments per patient (P less than 0.03).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Thoraxcenter, University Hospital Dijkzigt, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fioretti
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Reijs
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Neumann
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Taams
authors.forename: P P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Kooij
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bos
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Reiber
mesh_terms: D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D003326:Coronary Circulation; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery; D005082:Physical Exertion; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed
chemical_list: D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes