Value of Gating of Tc-99m Sestamibi SPECT Imaging in Distinguishing Ischemic from Nonischemic Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Limited data exist on whether evaluation of segmental wall motion in addition to myocardial perfusion provides ineremenral information for identification of ischemic (IC) from nonischemic (NIC) dilated cardiomyopathy. Thus, we performed exercise Tc- 99m sestamibi gated SPECT imaging on 36 patients w ith ejection fraction <35%. Patients having 2:1 epicardial coronary artery with 2:70% reduction of luminal diameter at angiography constituted the ischemic cardiomyopathy group (group 1, n=20). Patients with no significant coronary artery disease constituted the nonischemic group (group2, n=l 6). Perfusion was graded on a 5-point scale (O=n o r ına l ; 4=absent uptake) and wall motion on a 4-point scale (O=akinesia/dyski nesia, 3=normal) us ing the 20- segment model. The sumıned stress score (SSS) was defined as the s um of the 20. segmental sc o res. By univariale analysis, variabtes which were found to be significantly different between IC and NIC were: SSS (25.5±7.6 vs 7.68±1.58, pKeywords: Dilated cardiomyopathy, ischemic cardiomyopathy, SPECT