THE ROLE OF NUCLEAR CARDIOLOGY IN HYPERTENSION

In view of the increased risk of cardiac events in systemic hypertensi on, particularly in patients with left ventricular hypertrophy, it is important to have reliable methods of assessing cardiac structure and function and myocardial perfusion in these patients. While echocardiog raphy is the noninvasive method of choice for measuring the severity o f left ventricular hypertrophy there is no alternative at present to i nvasive coronary angiography to define accurately coronary artery anat omy. Nuclear cardiological investigations are extremely useful in the assessment of systolic and diastolic function at rest and during exerc ise. Furthermore, myocardial perfusion imaging is of value in identify ing myocardial ischaemia and assessing the functional importance of co ronary artery lesions. Recent studies have also suggested that nuclear cardiology investigations may be the best way to identify nonfunction ing but viable areas of the myocardium which may benefit from revascul arization.