Scintigraphic predictor of left ventricular size after acute myocardial infarction

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relation between thallium-201 scintigraphic indices and left ventricular size after acute myocardial infarction. Forty-seven patients with acute myocardial infarction underwent rest-redistribution thallium-201 scintigraphy at 2 weeks and left ventriculography at 4 weeks, after the onset of myocardial infarction. Percent (%) fixed defect, %redistribution and %reverse redistribution, calculated as a percentage of whole left ventricular area, were quantified with computer-generated unfolded map method of the myocardial radioactivity. Despite no significant difference in peak plasma creatine phosphokinase between the two groups, patients with anterior myocardial infarction (28 patients) had larger %fixed defect (p < 0.01), which was associated with higher end-diastolic pressure (p < 0.05) and larger end-diastolic volume index (p < 0.01) than those with inferior myocardial infarction (19 patients). End-diastolic volume index was not related to %redistribution and %reverse redistribution, but there was a good relation between end-diastolic volume index and %fixed defect in anterior (r = 0.79, p < 0.001) and in inferior (r = 0.73, p < 0.001) myocardial infarction. However, left ventricular end-diastolic volume index in anterior myocardial infarction was larger than that of inferior myocardial infarction at any given %fixed defect. Thus, site as well as size of fixed defect at 2 weeks after the onset of acute myocardial infarction was related to left ventricular end-diastolic volume at chronic phase.