MYOCARDIAL SCINTIGRAPHY WITH TC-99M-SESTAMIBI IN CHILDREN WITH KAWASAKI-DISEASE

Kawasaki disease (KD) is a systemic vasculitis syndrome of early child hood. It involves particularly the coronary arteries and may cause ane urysms and thrombotic occlusions. Echocardiography is the most useful method of detecting coronary aneurysms. Nevertheless, obstructive lesi ons are difficult to evaluate and often need invasive coronary angiogr aphy. An important feature of this disease is the possibility of findi ng coronary pathology several years after the onset. This characterist ic makes KD an important cause of coronary artery disease (CAD) in you ng adults. Thus patients with KD and previously diseased coronary arte ries should be kept under long-term control. However, coronary angiogr aphy is invasive and cannot be performed repeatedly, especially in you ng patients. As an alternative, thallium 201 scintigraphy has been emp loyed, but its low-energy photons are suboptimal for standard gamma-ca mera imaging, particularly in children aged less than three years.