Myocardial scintigraphy with technetium 99m pyrophosphate

The pyrophosphate of Tc99m attaches itself to ischaemic myocardial cells, and therefore makes it possible to obtain a scintigram of necrotic or necrosing myocardium. In a series of 65 cases the scintigram was positive in every case in which there had been a recent transmural infarct (17 cases). The results showed greater variation in the other ischaemic conditions involving the myocardium (limited infarcts or simple angina). The progress as a function of time was stuided in a series of fairly recent and older infarcts. The limitations and future prospects of this investigations are discussed.