[Prognostic value of thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy in patients with hypertension, suspected of coronary disease].

This study was undertaken to determine the prognostic value of exercise myocardial scintigraphy in hypertension patients suspected of coronary disease. One hundred and thirty six hypertension patients (mean age: 59) suspected of coronary disease were monitored for 46 months after thallium 201 exercise myocardial scintigraphy (tomographic mode). Prognostic factors analysed were clinical (typical nature of pain, exercise blood pressure), electrocardiographic (presence of repolarisation abnormalities in resting ECG), ergometric (electrically positive test) and scintigraphic (existence or not of transitory hypofixation). Events sought were: death of coronary origin, non-fatal myocardial infarction, aorto-coronary bypass and coronary angioplasty. One-way analysis showed that the existence of transitory hypofixation by scintigraphy, positive exercise electrocardiogram and typical angina pain enabled the prediction of coronary events. Thus 14 of 36 patients (39%) with transitory or combined hypofixation had a coronary event as against 7 of the 100 patients without transitory hypofixation. Only the existence of transitory hypofixation retained a prognostic value for coronary events by multivariate analysis (relative risk = 5.4, p = 0.001). It was also found that the prognosis was good when scintigraphy did not reveal transitory hypofixation while exercise testing was positive (2 coronary events/27 patients). It is concluded that, despite the possibility of "false positives", linked in particular to myocardial hypertrophy, myocardial scintigraphy offers better prediction of coronary events in hypertension patients that other clinical or electrocardiographic parameters.