Resting Chest Pain, Negative Treadmill Exercise Electrocardiogram, and Reverse Redistribution in Dipyridamole Myocardial Perfusion Scintigraphy Might be the Features of Coronary Artery Spasm.
BACKGROUND
Coronary artery spasm usually attacks while at rest and the diagnosis depends on provoking tests which mostly are invasive, expensive and not practical. Previous investigations demonstrated that in most patients with coronary artery spasm, treadmill exercise electrocardiography (TEEC) did not induce any ischemic changes, and myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) showed reverse redistribution (RR).


OBJECTIVE
Combination of resting chest pain, negative TEEC and RR might be a rational noninvasive set to predict coronary artery spasm.


METHODS
Patients with chest pain at rest, no significant coronary artery stenosis, and willing to undergo acetylcholine test were included. TEEC, dipyridamole and rest thallium-201 MPS were performed before or after coronary angiography. The patients were divided into spasm and nonspasm groups by acetylcholine test. The clinical features and results of TEEC and MPS were compared between the spasm and nonspasm groups.


RESULTS
Acetylcholine test was performed in 92 patients and coronary artery spasm was successfully provoked in 68 patients. Positive TEEC was induced in only 4 patients in the spasm group. RR was present in totally 77 patients and 68 of them were from the spasm group. By a combination of resting chest pain, negative TEEC and RR to diagnose coronary artery spasm, the sensitivity and specificity were 94% and 96% respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Combination of resting chest pain, negative TEE and RR appears to be a rational noninvasive set to predict coronary artery spasm.
Xiang
Ding-Cheng
DC
Department of Cardiology, Liuhuaqiao Hospital, Guangzhou, China. dcxiang@yahoo.com.cn
Yin
Ji-Lin
JL
He
Jian-Xin
JX
Gong
Zhi-Hua
ZH
D002637:Chest Pain; D003329:Coronary Vasospasm / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000473:pathology*; D004176:Dipyridamole; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015425:Myocardial Reperfusion; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011877:Radionuclide Imaging; D012146:Rest; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes
D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D004176:Dipyridamole