Cardiac rehabilitation: evidence for improvement in myocardial perfusion and function.

Sixteen patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) were studied with rest and exercise thallium scans and gated radionuclide ventriculography before and after 3 to 12 months of exercise training. The 5 patients presented in this report showed improvement in both the ejection fraction and exercise thallium images after training while achieving a higher maximal workload and an equivalent double product. These radionuclide techniques have provided the 1st documentation of improvement in both myocardial perfusion and function in CHD patients after exercise training. A controlled study using advances in imaging technology with patients matched according to postmyocardial infarction time and by the severity of disease is underway to confirm these findings.