[Myocardial imaging in patients with Kawasaki disease: exercise stress imaging and serial studies]

Thallium-201 myocardial imaging was performed in 80 children with coronary arterial lesions due to Kawasaki disease in order to assess the value of serial and exercise myocardial imagings. In eight of these children, abnormalities of the image were noted. Twenty children had serial thallium studies with an interval of three to 18 months, and five of these showed changes in the image including appearance of a new perfusion defect in one patient and improvement of perfusion defects in four. These changes of the myocardial image were correlated well with coronary angiographic findings obtained within a few days of the isotope studies. It was noted that the changes of the myocardial image were more frequently observed at relatively recent period recovered from Kawasaki disease. Exercise myocardial imaging using a bicycle ergometer was performed in eight children with coronary arterial lesions. In three an evidence of improvement of the myocardial perfusion was noted immediately after exercise as well as on the delayed image. In one patient, a decrease of the perfusion in the apex and inferior wall was noted immediately after exercise. On the observed image, image of the apex improved but that of the inferior wall remained hypoperfused. Thus thallium-201 myocardial imaging was considered to permit the best noninvasive documentation of ongoing myocardial perfusion abnormalities in patients with Kawasaki disease. Exercise myocardial imaging was found to be useful in differentiating the viable from nonviable myocardium. It was to be emphasized that quantitative evaluation by computer-assisted analysis was particularly valuable in detecting small areas and in a comparison of the myocardial images.