Quantitative evaluation of exercise Tl-201 myocardial scintigraphy before and after transluminal coronary angioplasty A preliminary report.

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Abstract
Quantitative evaluation of exercise 201Tl myocardial scintigraphy was carried out to determine the effect of transluminal coronary angioplasty (TCA) in 15 patients with critical coronary artery stenoses (.gtoreq. 70%). Lesions (13) were successfully dilated (reduction in stenosis by > 30%); 2 were unsuccessful. Calculated indices from 201Tl myocardial scintigraphy, using a semi-automatic computer image processing system, included washout factor (WF), vitality index (VI) and redistribution factor (RDF). No changes were noted in WF before and after dilatation. The VI increased in successfully dilated patients from 66.3 .+-. 8.5% (mean .+-. SD) to 77.8 .+-. 10.9% (P < 0.001) in the areas perfused by the vessels containing the lesions. The RDF decreased significantly after dilatation from 4.4 .+-. 6.1% to 1.2 .+-. 2.8% (P < 0.05) 1 h after exercise and from 10.4 .+-. 7.5% to 4.1 .+-. 4.2% (P < 0.01) 3-4 h after exercise. The perfusion of ischemic areas distal to critical coronary artery stenoses apparently improves following successful dilatation. 201Tl myocardial scintigraphy was shown to be very useful in the evaluation of TCA.