Open AccessThe assessment of myocardial viability and hibernation using resting thallium imaging
Author(s) -
PerroneFilardi Pasquale,
Chiariello Massimo,
Underwood Richard
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
clinical cardiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.263
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1932-8737
pISSN - 0160-9289
DOI - 10.1002/clc.4960231007
Subject(s) - medicine , thallium , coronary artery disease , cardiology , revascularization , redistribution (election) , hibernation (computing) , nuclear medicine , myocardial infarction , inorganic chemistry , state (computer science) , chemistry , algorithm , politics , political science , computer science , law
Rest‐redistribution thallium‐201 imaging is widely used to assess recovery of regional systolic dysfunction in patients with chronic coronary artery disease. In several studies, this technique has demonstrated very high sensitivity but reduced specificity, as reported in general for radionuclide imaging. In clinical terms, this implicates that many dysfunctional territories will not recover after revascularization despite a substantial amount of tracer uptake. Yet, the amount of tracer uptake in a given myocardial segment, although not perfect, remains the best indicator for predicting reversible dysfunction. In fact, the occurrence of redistribution after rest injection is not very common and it does not substantially contribute to the accuracy of the test. However, it is still undetermined whether the presence of redistribution is relevant for prognostic implications.