A complex cardio-diagnostic program integrating radiocardiography and radiocyclography with haemodynamic studies

The general lines of radiocardiographic practice in the framework of rehabilitation of cardiac patients based on 15 years experience are summed up. The basic technical elements of the scheme were: integration of the radiocyclographic method and of nuclear procedures with the traditional diagnostic investigations, with microcatheterization, co-ordination of the loading principle in the form of exercise tolerance tests with the radiocardiographic and radiocyclographic routine, adaptation of digital data collection and storing for off-line computer analysis, extension of the data collecting system of the radioisotope laboratory to the adjoining intensive care unit. In a group of middle-aged patients with earlier transmural infarction being on a rehabilitation training program the responses to loading were similar to those of a control group formed by normal aged males. In the patients having had artificial valve implantation or mitral commissurotomy, a favourable progress in terms of the New York Heart Association (NYHA) rating was demonstrable, the most informative parameter of assessment having been the distribution of effective circulating blood volume in the central circulation. Moreover, an increase in stroke volume at rest as well as in response to loading was demonstrable within 1--2 months after operation and also 3 1/2 years later. The diagnostic value of the 133Xe-technique for the measurement of ventilation and perfusion of the upper and lower regions of the lung was confined to patients with mitral stenosis or mitral valvular disease.