SCINTIGRAPHIC DIAGNOSIS OF EARLY SIGNS OF HEART-FAILURE AND THEIR CORRECTION WITH CAPTOPRIL IN PATIENTS WITH MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION

Twenty patients with acute myocardial infarction received captopril (6 ,25-25 mg) during first 6-12 hours of the disease and continued to tak e captopril (12,5-25 mg/day) for 1 year, Twenty patients of control gr oup did not receive captopril. During first 24-48 hours, before discha rge and after 6 and 12 months radiocardiopulmonography and equilibrium radionuclide ventriculography were performed in all patients, In capt opril treated patients improvement a: parameters of pulmonary hemodyna mics (stabilization of circulation time and of its arterial component, of passage time through lungs and right heart) occurred after 6 and 1 2 months. Prolongation of these times indicative of overload of pulmon ary circulation was observed in control group both during hospitalizat ion and at follow-up. In control group more patients had NYHA class II -III heart failure after 1 year and there were more cases of unstable angina during follow-up, a conclusion was made that scintigraphic esti mation of parameters of pulmonary circulation in patients with myocard ial infarction allowed to reveal signs of concealed heart failure and the use of low dose (up to 25 mg/day) captopril starting with acute pe riod of myocardial infarction resulted in correction of hemodynamic di sturbances.