[Clinical usefulness of exercise-nitroglycerin myocardial imaging using dual administration of thallium-201]

In order to differentiate transient myocardial ischemia from infarction, the delayed thallium-201 myocardial imaging (redistribution image) is widely utilized, however, the precise mechanism of redistribution remains unsolved. In the present study, we proposed a new method to elucidate myocardial ischemia on images. In normal subjects, patients with old myocardial infarction (OMI) without angina pectoris (AP) and patients with AP, 1.4 mCi of thallium-201 (Tl-201) was intravenously injected at the peak exercise, and immediately myocardial images were obtained in the three projections. Then, 0.3 mg of nitroglycerin (NTG) was sublingually given, and 0.6 mCi of Tl-201 was readministered. NTG myocardial images were analyzed in the left anterior oblique projection and evaluated visually and quantitatively. There was no significant difference in the relative activity on exercise to NTG images in normal subjects and patients with OMI, while patients with AP showed increased activity on exercise to NTG images. Furthermore, the increase in relative activity done by the exercise-nitroglycerin study was greater than that by the conventional exercise-redistribution study in patients with AP. It was concluded that a new method in the present study is able to image myocardial ischemia distinctly and could be useful in clinical studies.