Graft patency and myocardial viability after aorto-coronary bypass surgery evaluated by exercise 201Tl myocardial SPECT

To evaluate graft patency and myocardial viability after aorto-coronary (AC) bypass surgery, 58 patients (29 with old myocardial infarction and 29 with effort angina) underwent symptom-limited exercise 201Tl myocardial SPECT using a bicycle ergometer before and after surgery. The results were as follows: 1. The overall angiographic graft patency was 87% (97 of 112 grafts). 2. According to the stress SPECT images, graft patencies were 98% for areas with postoperative improvement by 201Tl uptakes, 79% for areas with unchanged patterns, and 53% for areas with worsened patterns. In spite of patent grafts, among cases with worsened 201Tl uptakes the etiologies included perioperative infarction, anastomotic strictures, and poor run-off distal to the anastomoses. 3. Following patency of grafts, postoperative normalized perfusion patterns were observed in 69% (27 of 39 segments) of segments with persistent preoperative low uptakes and 25% (4 of 16 segments) of segments with persistent preoperative defects. Thus, exercise 201Tl myocardial SPECT proved a useful diagnostic means of assessing graft patency and effectiveness. However, after AC bypass surgery, 25% of the regions which had persistent defects before surgery exhibited normal perfusion patterns. These findings suggest that persistent defects may represent hypoperfusion of viable myocardium, and that we should carefully diagnose myocardial scars. (author)