Dipyridamole cerebral blood flow stress test in ischemic cerebrovascular diseases

Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of dipyridamole cerebral blood flow stress test in ischemic cerebrovascular diseases (CVD). Methods: Twenty-four CVD patients and 8 controls received both rest and stress cerebral blood flow perfusion imaging within one week of each other using Elscint Apex SP-6 SPECT. The dose of dipyridamole was 0.56 mg/kg. The semiquantitative methods were used for result analysis and the sensitivity of rest and stress test were compared. The asymmetric indexes at both tests were analyzed using paired-t test. Results: For CVD patients, the sensitivity was improved from 58.3% to 83.3% in dipyridamole stress test. For the evaluation of vertebro-basilar ischemia (VBI) and transient ischemia attack (TIA), the sensitivity was improved from 46.7% to 73.3%. The asymmetric indexes before and after dipyridamole were of no significant difference for the controls, but it had significant difference between two tests for the 24 patients. In dipyridamole stress test, the authors found different reaction patterns also. Conclusions: Dipyridamole stress test is helpful to finding more lesions in CVD patients and may be it could reflect the cerebrovascular reaction