[Quantitative analysis of myocardial perfusion by digital subtraction angiography]

Digital subtraction angiography (DSA) has been adopted to detect ischemic myocardial areas and to quantitatively evaluate the degrees of myocardial perfusion abnormalities. Subtraction for selective coronary arteriography was performed sequentially between mask and enhanced images in the same cardiac phases by means of ECG signals. We obtained three distinct perfusion phases which we termed the arterial, capillary, and venous phases. Densitometry of the circumferential cardiac wall was performed on these sequential images. The results were compared with 201Tl myocardial scintigrams and cine angiograms. In the arterial phase, the abnormalities of the coronary artery, such as stenosis, obstruction and collaterals were represented. In the capillary phase, contrast materials served as markers of myocardial perfusion and delineated infarctions as areas of low contrast enhancement compared to the normally perfused myocardium. In the venous phase, the infarcted areas were represented as areas with greater relative contrast enhancement than that of the normal myocardium. Circumferential analysis of perfusion could provide more detailed information about myocardial ischemic areas and the degrees of ischemia. Although we used invasive selective coronary arteriography, DSA techniques have numerous merits such as excellent temporal resolution, spatial resolution, and good contrast resolution, over conventional methods. Quantitative DSA methodology which we developed provided not only anatomical information about the main coronary arteries but new information about abnormalities of peripheral myocardial perfusion.