Myocardial Viability Testing and the Effect of Early Intervention in Patients With Advanced Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Background— The clinical value of revascularization and other procedures in patients with severe systolic heart failure is unclear. It has been suggested that assessing ischemia and viability by positron emission tomography (PET) with fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) imaging may identify patients for whom revascularization may lead to improved survival. We performed a propensity analysis to determine whether there might be a survival advantage from revascularization. Methods and Results— We analyzed the survival of 765 consecutive patients (age 64±11 years, 80% men) with advanced left ventricular systolic dysfunction (ejection fraction ≤35%) and without significant valvular heart disease who underwent PET/FDG study at the Cleveland Clinic between 1997 and 2002. Early intervention was defined as any cardiac intervention (surgical or percutaneous) within the first 6 months of the PET/FDG study. In the entire cohort, 230 patients (30%) underwent early intervention (188 [25%] had open heart surgery, most commonly cor...

This publication has 43 references indexed in Scilit: