The value of regional wall motion abnormalities on gated mycardiac perfusion imaging in perfusion imaging in predicting angiographic stenoses of coronary artery

Objective: To determine the possible level of angiographic stenoses of coronary artery at which reversible regional wall motion abnormalities (RWMA) are present on ^99mTc-sestamibi (^99mTc-MIBI)-gated myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI). Methods: ninty patients undergoing coronary angiography MPI within two weeks were recruited. A five grades and nine segments marking system was introduced to assess the RWMA and thickening of left ventricles. Results: The sensitivity of reversible RWMA for detecting ≥75% angiographic stenoses was 64%,with a specificity of 95% and positive predictive value of 97%. The presence of reversible RWMA was able to stratify patients with severe angiographic stenoses of 75% or more from those less than 75% with high positive predictive value. A good correlation was noted between the presence of reversible RWMA and the coronary artery jeopardy score. Multivariate analysis showed that the post-stress RWMA and reversible RWMA scores and positive dipyridamole-stress exercise electrocardiogram(ECG) were significant predictors of angiographic severity. Conclusions: Reversible RWMA, as shown by dipyridamole stress ^99mTc-MIBI MPI, is a significant predictor of angiographic disease with very high specificity and adds incremental value to MPI for the assessment of angiographic severity. (authors)