Skip to main content
British Heart Journal logoLink to British Heart Journal
. 1980 Dec;44(6):650–656. doi: 10.1136/hrt.44.6.650

Assessment of chest pain in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy using exercise thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy.

D Pitcher, R Wainwright, M Maisey, P Curry, E Sowton
PMCID: PMC482461  PMID: 7193039

Abstract

Exercise thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy was performed in 23 patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Eighteen patients presented with chest pain which was a persistent symptom in 11. Selective coronary arteriography was performed in 16 patients and showed normal coronary arteries in 15 and insignificant luminal irregularities in one patient. Eighteen patients had abnormal scintigrams. Three had an abnormal distribution of tracer entirely attributable to asymmetric septal hypertrophy, whereas 15 had discrete tracer uptake defects which could not be explained solely by myocardial hypertrophy. In this latter group of patients three scintigraphic patterns were identified: (1) in 10 patients defects were seen in scintigrams immediately after exercise but not in delayed images obtained four to six hours later. Eight of these patients had chest pain. (2) Four patients had uptake defects seen in both initial and delayed images. One patient had chest pain. (3) In three patients, one of whom had chest pain, tracer defects were seen only in delayed images and were not apparent in the initial scintigrams. Chest pain occurred in eight out of 10 patients with scintigraphic evidence of myocardial ischaemia but was present in only three out of 13 patients with non-ischaemic scintigrams. The value of exercise thallium-201 myocardial imaging as a diagnostic technique in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy appears limited. Scintigraphic evidence of regional myocardial ischaemia in the absence of significant coronary artery disease, however, contributes to an understanding of the mechanism of angina production in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Full text

PDF
650

Images in this article

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Bailey I. K., Griffith L. S., Rouleau J., Strauss W., Pitt B. Thallium-201 myocardial perfusion imaging at rest and during exercise. Comparative sensitivity to electrocardiography in coronary artery disease. Circulation. 1977 Jan;55(1):79–87. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.55.1.79. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Bulkley B. H., Rouleau J., Strauss H. W., Pitt B. Idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis: detection by thallium 201 myocardial perfusion imaging. N Engl J Med. 1975 Nov 27;293(22):1113–1116. doi: 10.1056/NEJM197511272932202. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Frank S., Braunwald E. Idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis. Clinical analysis of 126 patients with emphasis on the natural history. Circulation. 1968 May;37(5):759–788. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.37.5.759. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Gewirtz H., O'Keefe D. D., Pohost G. M., Strauss H. W., McIlduff J. B., Daggett W. M. The effect of ischemia on thallium-201 clearance from the myocardium. Circulation. 1978 Aug;58(2):215–219. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.58.2.215. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Maron B. J., Epstein S. E., Roberts W. C. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and transmural myocardial infarction without significant atherosclerosis of the extramural coronary arteries. Am J Cardiol. 1979 Jun;43(6):1086–1102. doi: 10.1016/0002-9149(79)90139-5. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Pohost G. M., Zir L. M., Moore R. H., McKusick K. A., Guiney T. E., Beller G. A. Differentiation of transiently ischemic from infarcted myocardium by serial imaging after a single dose of thallium-201. Circulation. 1977 Feb;55(2):294–302. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.55.2.294. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Roberts W. C., Ferrans V. J. Pathologic anatomy of the cardiomyopathies. Idiopathic dilated and hypertrophic types, infiltrative types, and endomyocardial disease with and without eosinophilia. Hum Pathol. 1975 May;6(3):287–342. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Sanderson J. E., Gibson D. G., Brown D. J., Goodwin J. F. Left ventricular filling in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. An angiographic study. Br Heart J. 1977 Jun;39(6):661–670. doi: 10.1136/hrt.39.6.661. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Strauss H. W., Harrison K., Langan J. K., Lebowitz E., Pitt B. Thallium-201 for myocardial imaging. Relation of thallium-201 to regional myocardial perfusion. Circulation. 1975 Apr;51(4):641–645. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.51.4.641. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Sutton M. G., Tajik A. J., Gibson D. G., Brown D. J., Seward J. B., Guiliani E. R. Echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular filling and septal and posterior wall dynamics in idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis. Circulation. 1978 Mar;57(3):512–520. doi: 10.1161/01.cir.57.3.512. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from British Heart Journal are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES