title: Echocardiography versus (201)Tl semi-quantitative gated single photon emission tomography for the evaluation of cardiac disease associated with late stage Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients cardiac abnormalities are often detected. In adult DMD patients cardiac disease (CD) is a cause of death which increases by age and is related to respiratory dysfunction. Studies have demonstrated that CD in early DMD can be detected by echocardiography (EC) or semi-quantitative gated single photon emission tomography ((201)Tl SQGS), and the accuracy of these two tests is similar. As the disease advances, evaluation of CD by EC becomes difficult due to thoracic deformity and scoliosis. We compared (201)Tl SQGS and EC in the evaluation of cardiac function in late stage DMD, based on the ejection fraction (EF) value calculated by both tests. Twenty-three males with late stage DMD, 12 to 35 years of age (22.2±7.5), were studied by (201)Tl SQGS and EC. The mean EF value by (201)Tl SQGS was 60.8%±14.1%, which differed from that obtained by EC (52.7%±9.8%, P=0.003). Eleven patients less than 20 years old did not demonstrate a significant difference between the two tests (P=0.06), however, 12 patients over 20 years of age had significantly different results between tests (P=0.002).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Although our patients were few we indicated that in DMD patients, aged older than 20 years, at an advanced stage of the disease, the EF values calculated by EC were lower than those by (201)Tl SQGS possibly due to thoracic deformity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Neurological Institute, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Japan. a-fujita@neuro.med.kyushu-u.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fujita
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Arahata
authors.forename: Miwa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sugawara
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kawano
authors.forename: Naokazu
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sasagasako
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Fujii
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002311:Cardiomyopathy, Dilated / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D020388:Muscular Dystrophy, Duchenne / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes