Myocardial perfusion scintigraphy in the diagnosis of coronary heart disease

Purpose of the work is to study the diagnostic value of myocardial scintigraphy with ¹⁹⁹Tl and ^99mTc-MIBI for detecting coronary ischemia. Thallium-199 myocardial imaging was carried out in 160 patients: 105 with and 55 without coronary disease. Planar scintigraphy and single-photon emission computer-aided tomography (SPECT) with ^99mTc-MIBI were carried out in 35 coronary patients and 27 controls. High sensitivity (92%) and specificity (84%) of ¹⁹⁹Tl myocardial imaging for the diagnosis of coronary disease are demonstrated. The specificity of ^99mTc-MIBI was 85% and sensitivity 91%, for SPECT 89 and 94%, respectively. The incidence of perfusion defect detection by both radiopharmaceuticals increased with the number of involved coronary arteries and in the presence of postinfarction cardiosclerosis. A significantly lower dose loading on the patients allows to recommend ¹⁹⁹Tl and ^99mTc-MIBI for scintigraphic diagnosis of coronary heart disease.