Left ventricular ejection fraction and volumes on rest gated 201Tl perfusion SPECT: comparison with two-dimensional echocardiography.
BACKGROUND
Rest gated 201Tl images are considered to be of poor count statistics due to lower energy and low photon flux of 201Tl in addition to increased attenuation and low dose that can be administered. We compared the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), end diastolic (EDV) and end systolic volume (ESV) obtained on 4 h gated rest 201Tl myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with those obtained by two-dimensional echocardiography (2-D ECHO) in patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease (CAD).


METHODS
Eighty-two consecutive patients who underwent gated 201Tl stress-rest myocardial perfusion SPECT and 2-D ECHO were studied. The gated thallium images were processed with Siemens e-soft autocardiac processor and LVEF, EDV and ESV were evaluated using Emory Cardiac Toolbox. The same parameters were also assessed on the 2-D ECHO using the modified Simpson method for comparison.


RESULTS
Out of 82 rest gated images, one study was excluded because of poor count statistics. In 81 (99%) patients there was good linear correlation with 2-D ECHO values and rest gated 201Tl SPECT images for EDV, ESV and LVEF. Pearson's correlation co-efficient (r value) for EDV, ESV and LVEF between the two methods was 0.78, 0.79 and 0.88, respectively. A Bland-Altman plot showed close agreement with LVEF but not for EDV and ESV.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that the 4 h rest gated 201Tl study gives a reliable value for the LVEF compared to 2-D ECHO and can be used in routine clinical practice.
Patel
Chetan D
CD
Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. chetantruptipatel@hotmail.com
Nadig
Murali R
MR
Kurien
Sumodh
S
Barai
Sukanta
S
Narang
Rajeev
R
Malhotra
Arun
A
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D015637:Gated Blood-Pool Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D012146:Rest; D013318:Stroke Volume; D013793:Thallium; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods; D018487:Ventricular Dysfunction, Left / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology
D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; C027549:thallium chloride; D013793:Thallium