The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol 28, 522-529, Copyright © 1979 by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
Radionuclide assessment of aortocoronary bypass surgery
RA Corne, MS Gotsman, J Baron, J Salomon, R Vaknine, J Rod, A Weiss and H Atlan
Rest and exercise thallium 201 myocardial scintigraphy and multiple gated
radionuclide angiography were correlated with the results of clinical
status, exercise electrocardiography, coronary arteriography, and contrast
left ventriculography in a series of 12 prospectively studied consecutive
patients before and after aortocoronary bypass operation. Patients were
divided into two groups based on a comparison between preoperative and
postoperative 201T1 scintigrams. Group 1 (6 patients) demonstrated improved
or normal postoperative perfusion scintigrams and excellent correlation
between the site of a patent graft and the improvement in myocardial
perfusion on the postoperative exercise scintigrams. Regional wall motion
remained normal in 3 patients and improved in 3. In Group 2 (6 patients)
the postoperative 201T1 scintigrams were unchanged or worse. Each patient
demonstrated graft occlusion, graft stenosis, distal disease, or a
perioperative myocardial infarction. No improvement in regional wall motion
occurred in 4 of these 6 patients. Neither the symptomatic response to
aortocoronary bypass operation nor the response to exercise testing
successfully predicted graft patency.