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Concomitant coronary artery disease often occurs in patients with peripheral vascular disease, but it may be asymptomatic. Despite being asymptomatic, cardiovascular events are the main source of morbidity and mortality in this group of patients. Dipyridamole thallium scintigraphy has been shown to be of prognostic value in patients with peripheral vascular disease and symptomatic coronary artery disease, but its effect on the long-term outcome in the asymptomatic group of patients is less defined. Eighty-four consecutive patients with peripheral vascular disease and no symptoms of coronary artery disease were therefore evaluated by clinical assessment, dipyridamole thallium imaging, radionuclide ventriculography, and cardiac catheterization and followed for a mean of 66 months. Abnormal perfusion patterns were found on thallium scintigraphy in 48 patients (57%); fixed, mixed, and reversible defects were present in 14 (17%), 11 (13%), and 23 (27%) patients, respectively. Significant coronary artery disease was present in 52 patients (69%) and mean left ventricular ejection fraction was 44%. During the follow-up period, 23 patients had a cardiac event (nonfatal myocardial infarction or cardiac death). Univariate analysis of 15 clinical, scintigraphic, radionuclide, and angiographic variables revealed that age, angiographic extent of coronary artery disease, and an abnormal thallium scan were significant predictors of subsequent cardiac events. Multivariate stepwise logistic regression analyses selected fixed and mixed thallium defects and diffuse coronary artery disease as the only significant independent predictors of outcome. Thus, the present study shows the value of dipyridamole thallium scintigraphy as a valuable prognostic indicator for long-term event-free survival in a cohort of patients with peripheral vascular disease and no history or symptoms of coronary artery disease.

Both symptom-limited maximal exercise and intravenously given dipyridamole stress (0.56 mg/kg over 4 min with a 2 min walk) gated thallium scans were performed in 22 patients undergoing coronary arteriography for the assessment of chest pain. All scans were acquired gated to the electrocardiogram in 3 projections and were reported for the presence and extent of defects in 5 myocardial segments in each view. In addition, left and right ventricular myocardial uptake and estimates of right and left lung and liver to left ventricular uptake were assessed relative to the injected dose of thallium-201. Overall, 190/310 segments were abnormal with exercise compared with 169/310 with dipyridamole. Segments were scored greater in extent in 90/310 cases with exercise, compared with 46/310 in which the defect was more extensive with dipyridamole (P less than 0.0005). Non-attenuation corrected percentage myocardial thallium uptakes were similar for both stresses: anterior percentage uptakes, 0.785% +/- 0.230% with exercise versus 0.870% +/- 0.217% with dipyridamole (NSD). Left and right lung and liver to left ventricle ratios were all significantly higher with dipyridamole than with exercise (1.587 +/- 0.408 versus 1.446 +/- 0.518, P less than 0.02; 1.78 +/- 0.479 versus 1.46 +/- 0.502, P less than 0.002; 2.598 +/- 0.788 versus 1.265 +/- 0.386, P less than 0.001, respectively). High right and left lung uptakes with dipyridamole were strongly correlated with high exercise values (r = 0.756, P less than 0.001; r = 0.809, P less than 0.001). The liver uptake was weakly correlated between the 2 different stress tests (r = 0.483, P less than 0.02).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)