Effects of resting ischemia assessed by thallium scintigraphy on QRS scoring system for estimating left ventricular function quantified by radionuclide angiography in acute myocardial infarction patients.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether resting ischemia limits the usefulness of the QRS scoring system in predicting left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) in patients with acute infarction. We studied 48 patients after acute infarction by means of 12-lead ECG, thallium-201 scintigraphy, and radionuclide angiography. The thallium-201 scintigrams showed fixed defects in 25 patients, perfusion defects with partial or complete redistribution in the delayed images in 19 patients, and normal images in the remaining four patients. In the 48 patients there was a significant correlation between the QRS score and LVEF (r = -0.67; p less than 0.001). Patients with fixed defects showed a better correlation than patients with resting ischemia (r = -0.77 vs r = -0.60). A QRS score of 3 or less was used to separate patients with LVEF of 40% or greater from those with lower LVEF in patients with fixed defects (p = 0.0005), but this cutoff did not categorize patients with resting ischemia as to LVEF. Thus the presence of rest ischemia in patients with acute infarction may affect the correlation between QRS score and LVEF.
D004562:Electrocardiography; D005260:Female; D006321:Heart / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009206:Myocardium / Q000473:pathology*; D011868:Radioisotopes; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012146:Rest; D013318:Stroke Volume; D013793:Thallium
D011868:Radioisotopes; D013793:Thallium