Diagnostic value of myocardial radionuclide imaging in patients with multivessel coronary disease

BACKGROUND: Myocardial perfusion radionuclide imaging (MPRI) is a noninvasive method extremely useful for evaluating ischemia in patients with coronary disease. However, the idea that this method would not be effective for patients with multivessel coronary disease is still entertained. OBJECTIVE: Assess the value of MPRI with gated-SPECT for tracing pharmacological stress-induced ischemia in patients with multivessel obstructive coronary disease. METHODS: We evaluated 68 patients with multivessel obstructive coronary disease applying coronary angiography for performing MPRI under pharmacologic stress with dipyridamole. The tests were analyzed by two nuclear medicine physicians without prior knowledge of the result of the coronary angiography. RESULTS: Gated-SPECT revealed that, out of the patients, 64 (92.8%) showed images of perfusion abnormalities and 4 (7.2%) showed normal perfusion, given that three of the latter showed functional changes. CONCLUSION: MPRI has shown high value for identifying patients with multivessel coronary disease, since most patients had perfusion abnormalities indicative of ischemia.