Myocardial studies in haemodialysis patients

Myocardial perfusion was studied using Thallium-201 (Tl-201) after dipyridamol in 33 patients on maintenance haemodialysis. It could be shown that coronary artery disease was underestimated by clinical symptoms, 55 per cent of patients had abnormal Tl-201 scintigrams, whereas typical or atypical chest pain was present in only 33 per cent of the patients. Eleven patients died within a year of the scintigraphic study, which resulted in an average mortality rate of 7.7 per cent/year. The risk of developing fatal cardiovascular complications was higher in patients with an abnormal Tl-201 perfusion (7 of 18) than in those with a normal scintigram (1 of 15). Thus nuclear medicine procedures appear to be of diagnostic value in haemodialysis patients, which in addition may have prognostic implications.