SESTAMIBI IMAGING AND ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY - A COMBINED APPROACH TO MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION

The resting relationship of MIBI segmental uptake to regional wall mot ion has been studied in 30 patients with postinfarction wall motion ab normalities. The purpose of this study was to verify whether an integr ated approach using Sestamibi (MIBI) imaging (perfusion analysis) comb ined with echocardiography (ECHO) (wall motion analysis) could present an additive value to differentiate infarcted from viable myocardial a reas with respect to MIBI imaging alone, The same 11 segments model fo r left ventricle was used to compare segmental wall motion scores vers us segmental uptake scores using a chi(2) analysis. The global score f requency rates for MIBI and ECHO were examined and a subsequent compar ative analysis score versus score on each segment was performed, Our d ata, based on a chi(2) analysis, indicated that MIBI imaging overestim ates the effective area of necrosis, underestimating, furthermore, hyp operfused but non-necrotic myocardium. We can conclude that an integra ted approach based on both segmental perfusion and wall motion analysi s, seems to be clinically suitable for a correct evaluation of infarct ed patients, especially in view of revascularization procedures, provi ding an additive value in discriminative capacity, with respect to MIB I scintigraphic analysis alone.