PROGNOSTIC VALUE OF A NORMAL EXERCISE MYOCARDIAL PERFUSION IMAGING STUDY IN PATIENTS WITH ANGIOGRAPHICALLY SIGNIFICANT CORONARY-ARTERY DISEASE

The benign outcome of patients with a normal exercise thallium-201 myocardial perfusion study in a general population presenting for evaluation has been well established.1 The prevalence of significant coronary artery disease (CAD) in such a group of patients with normal thallium-201 imaging is presumably very low. Very few reports involving normal thallium-201 studies have included patients with angiographically significant CAD and none have systematically evaluated the prognostic value of thallium-201 imaging in this subgroup. Whether normal thallium-201 studies would have the same benign predictive value in patients with angiographically significant CAD is consequently unknown. We therefore studied the outcome of patients with normal exercise thallium-201 studies who had significant angiographic CAD established at cardiac catheterization. © 1993.