Abstract

The value of dobutamine stress radionuclide ventriculography in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD) was investigated in this study. Forty-eight patients with suspected CAD were included in this study. Twenty-six (24 males, 2 females, mean age: 53.5±13.3 years) had angiographically proven CAD. The remaining 22 cases(19 males, 3 females) without CAD had a mean age of 44.4±11.0 years. Twenty minutes after the injection of 2 mg stannous pyrophosphate, 20 mCi Tc-99m-pertechnetate was administered i.v. and basal radionüklid ventrikülography (RNV) study was performed on left anterior oblique position. Then, dobutamine infusion was carried out at each 10µgr/kg/min dose increment from 10 to a maximum of 40 µgr/kg/min throughout 10 minutes. RNV images were taken at the last 5 minutes of each dobutamine infusion. In patient with CAD, ejection fraction (EF) after dobutamine infusion was increased by 4.6 % of the basal value, whereas this value was 18.6% in patients without CAD (p<0,005). Compared with the coronary angiographic findings, the sensitivity and specificity of dobutamine stress RNV in the diagnosis of CAD were 80.7 % and 86.3 %, respectively. It is concluded that, dobutamine stress RNV offers a safe, readily available and very highly sensitive and specific screening test for detecting CAD and it may be useful, especially in patients who can not do physical exercise or in whom physical exercise is inadequate and in patients with nondiagnostic ECG findings.