High-dose dipyridamole and gated sestamibi SPECT imaging provide diagnostic resting and stress ejection fractions useful for predicting extent of coronary artery disease.

Abstract

A decline in ejection fraction at stress compared with rest images has been associated with increased severity of coronary artery disease (CAD) and suggests a poorer prognosis. Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) using high-dose dipyridamole (HDD) has been shown to more accurately detect CAD than either standard dose dipyridamole (SDD) or exercise-induced stress (EST), but has not been looked at to determine its usefulness in detecting changes in stress and rest ejection fractions. To determine the relationship between changes in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and the severity of CAD, 36 Individuals underwent gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) MPI using HDD. In each case resting and stress LVEFs were determined along with MPI results. Subjects with single-vessel CAD demonstrated an increase in LVEF from 77.8% (sd +/-8.8%) to 85.6% (sd +/-8.4%) resulting in a statistically significant increase in LVEF of 7.8% (p = 0.009). Patients with two-vessel disease showed a smaller increase from 73.2% (sd + 8.3%) to 79.8% (sd + 9.8%) following HDD stress. This increase was statistically (p = 0.008) significant. Patients with triple-vessel CAD showed a reduction in LVEF from 67.4% (sd +/-14.07) to 65.1% (sd +/-16.5%) which represented a decrease in LVEF of 2.7% and approached (p = 0.25) but did not reach statistical significance. Both the resting and stress LVEFs were statistically lower (p<0.05) in patients with triple-vessel CAD. Changes in resting LVEF (REF) and HDD pharmacologically induced stress LVEF (SEF) provide a valuable diagnostic marker as to the number of significantly diseased coronary arteries and can be acquired from gated SPECT sestamibi images.