Regional myocardial perfusion in patients with atherosclerotic coronary artery disease, at rest and during angina pectoris induced by tachycardia

We studied regional myocardial perfusion by scintigraphic computer-assisted analysis of initial distribution, washout rates, and residual activity of 133Xe injected into the left coronary artery of four patients with normal arteriograms and 14 patients with coronary stenosis. At rest, residual activity in poststenotic regions was always greater than in control regions, but initial washout rates were not slower. During angina, following xenon injections, the amount of indicator distributed to the poststenotic regions was markedly reduced; the increase of the initial washout rates was smaller than in control regions relative to rest, and residual activity was higher. Initial washout rates did not differ as much as from those of normal myocardium because in severe ischemia too little indicator is deposited initially in these regions to produce a change of any magnitude. Indeed, when angina was induced immediately after the xenon injection, poststenotic washout rates became much slower during angina than at rest, a finding that implicates functional factors in impairing poststenotic myocardial perfusion during angina.