Dipyridamole Thallium Imaging in Patients Being Considered for Vascular Procedures

Abstract

We routinely performed intravenous dipyridamole thallium imaging and resting radionuclide ventriculography on 190 patients being considered for elective vascular procedures. Patients with thallium redistribution underwent coronary arteriography. Patients in group 1 (n = 78) had clinical evidence of coronary artery disease, and patients in group 2 (n = 112) had no history or electrocardiographic evidence of coronary artery disease. The frequency of thallium redistribution was not significantly different in the two groups (45% in group 1 and 46% in group 2). Coronary arteriography identified severe three-vessel or left main disease in eight patients (10%) in group 1 and 16 patients (14%) in group 2. Selection of patients for dipyridamole thallium imaging prior to vascular reconstruction should be based on whether or not documentation of the extent of coronary artery disease would influence therapy rather than on clinical indicators of coronary disease.

Gated myocardial perfusion SPECT for preoperative risk stratification in patients with noncardiac vascular disease

“…Therefore, preoperative risk stratifi cation for possible cardiac events is very important, as well as the follow-up of postoperative patients. In the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association (ACC/AHA) guidelines, noninvasive testing is useful for preoperative risk stratifi cation for high-risk surgical procedures [1], and many articles have discussed the usefulness of myocardial perfusion single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) for preoperative risk stratifi cation of noncardiac surgery [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Most of these studies concluded that myocardial perfusion SPECT was predictive of perioperative cardiac events of noncardiac surgery.…”