Quantification of walking exercise required for improvement of dipyridamole thallium-201 image quality

Dipyridamole 201Tl imaging is an accepted diagnostic procedure for the evaluation of patients unable to perform adequate treadmill exercise, but is limited by high infradiaphragmatic activity. While recent studies have shown that the addition of exercise reduces this activity, the amount of exercise needed to effect such an improvement is uncertain. To prospectively evaluate the amount of walking exercise required to produce improvement in image quality, 120 patients were randomized to either a control group receiving dipyridamole alone, or to dipyridamole supplemented with one of four exercise protocols. Ratios of heart-to-liver and heart-to-adjacent infradiaphragmatic activity were generated from anterior images acquired immediately following the test. Heart-to-total infradiaphragmatic activity was also graded semiquantitatively. Results showed improved target-to-background ratios as well as semiquantitative assessment of image quality for dipyridamole supplemented with exercise as compared to dipyridamole alone. No difference was seen between walking in place and Bruce treadmill exercise at Stage 0 or 0.5. A trend towards higher values was seen with Bruce Stage 1 exercise supplementation, but this did not reach statistical significance. No significant complications occurred during the study. We conclude that 3 min of walking exercise is a safe and effective means of improving the quality of dipyridamole 201Tl images.