The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 27, 42-48, Copyright © 1979 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Perioperative myocardial infarction associated with coronary artery bypass graft surgery: improved sensitivity in the diagnosis within 6 hours after operation with 99mTc-glucoheptonate myocardial imaging and myocardial-specific isoenzymes
AJ Roberts, JR Combes, JG Jacobstein, DR Alonso, MR Post, VA Subramanian, RM Abel, N Brachfeld, SA Kline and WA Gay Jr
The present study was performed to evaluate scintigraphic imaging with
technetium 99m-labeled glucoheptonate and serum enzyme levels of creatine
phosphokinase isoenzyme (MB-CPK) in the early diagnosis of perioperative
acute myocardial infarction associated with saphenous vein bypass graft
operations. Myocardial imaging was done in 27 patients (50% of whom were
considered high-risk) before operation and again 5 hours after operation.
Four of these patients (15%) had both electrocardiographic and serum MB-CPK
evidence of acute myocardial infarction, and all 4 had developed positive
postoperative scintigrams. Four other patients had only elevated serum
MB-CPK, and scintigrams became positive after operation in 3 of them. In
addition, serum MB-CPK 6 hours after operation was 83 +/- 21 mIU/ml (mean
+/- standard error of the mean) in patients with positive postoperative
scans compared with 24 +/- 5 mIU/ml in those patients with negative
postoperative scintigrams (p less than 0.001). Myocardial imaging with
99mTc- glucoheptonate in the perioperative period is rapid, safe, and
atraumatic. Furthermore, our results suggest that it is a sensitive method
for the early diagnosis of perioperative acute myocardial infarction, and,
when imaging is combined with serum MB-CPK isoenzyme analysis, the
reliability of the diagnosis of acute myocardial infarction is enhanced
even further. Only 1 of the patients who showed perioperative myocardial
damage had acute hemodynamic compromise or obvious impairment of recovery
in the immediate postoperative period, and the 30-day mortality of the
total group was 4% (1 of 27).