Diagnosis of coronary artery disease in hypertensive patients

Exercise radionuclide ventriculography (ERV) is considered a superior non-invasive screening test for coronary artery disease (CAD). ERV showed, however, a low specificity in hypertensive patients (H). The diagnostic accuracy of EAR and thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy (M) was evaluated in 23 patients (H) with chest pain and positive ECG-strees test. All patients underwent ERV and M, randomly, in different days. Finally, they all underwent coronary angiography: CAD was diagnosed in case of luminal narrowing ≥ 70% in 1 major coronary artery at least. Eleven patients had severe CAD. ERV was considered positive for CAD in presence of ex-induced abnormality of wall motion and/or in case of ex-induced ejection fraction increase ≤ 5% respect to the basal values. M was considered positive for CAD when perfusion defects were observed in early images only. ERV showed low diagnostic accuracy. On the contrary M had both sensibility and specificity, and a high positive and negative predictive value in the diagnosis of CAD. M is thus suggested as the non-invasive methodology of choice in hypertensive patients with suspected CAD