[Evaluation of myocardial uptake of thallium-201 in whole body scintigraphy].

Whole body scintigraphy (WBS) was performed to assess the myocardial uptake in the dipyridamole (DP), exercise loading (EX) and thallium-201 (Tl-201) myocardial scintigraphy. DP-WBS was studied in 15 patients (pts), EX-WBS was studied in 17 pts and resting (RE)-WBS was studied in 20 pts. All pts had some kinds of heart disease clinically, but their myocardial scintigraphy showed no abnormal findings. DP-WBS and EX-WBS were performed both immediately (early image DP-E, EX-E) and 3 hours later (delayed image EX-D, DP-D) after injection of Tl-201. RE-WBS were performed immediately (early image REST) after injection of Tl-201 only. The percent myocardial uptake, background ratio of the myocardium and washout ratio of some organs were calculated from the ROIs (region of interest) over the whole body, heart, lung, mediastinum, abdomen and thighs. The myocardial uptake of DP-E was 9.1 +/- 1.4%, myocardial uptake of EX-E was 6.3 +/- 0.8% and myocardial uptake of REST was 7.1 +/- 1.2%. The thighs uptake of DP-E was 10.4 +/- 1.1%, thighs uptake of EX-E was 25.3 +/- 2.6% and thighs uptake of EX-E was 25.3 +/- 2.6% and thighs uptake of REST was 10.1 +/- 1.5%. The percent myocardial uptake of DP-E was not only higher than that of EX-E (p less than 0.001) but also higher than that of REST (p less than 0.01). Thus, we conclude that DP scintigraphy showed clearer myocardial image than EX scintigraphy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)