Fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography in assessing myocardial viability in a tertiary academic centre in Johannesburg, South Africa: a pilot study

Cardiovasc J Afr. 2019;30(6):331-335. doi: 10.5830/CVJA-2019-029. Epub 2019 Jun 12.

Abstract

Background: Positron emission tomography detects patients with myocardial contractile dysfunction secondary to ischaemic heart disease who may benefit from coronary revascularisation.

Methods: We reviewed technetium-99m sestamibi singlephoton emission computed tomography (SPECT) and fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F18-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) data from 236 patients imaged between January 2009 and June 2015. The patients were grouped into three groups: no evidence of viability, viability 1-10% and viability > 10%.

Results: Viability exceeding 10% was evident in 55% of the patients. On multivariate analysis, aspirin intake [OR: 1.92; 95% CI: 1.08-3.41; p = 0.026] and hypertension [OR: 1.89; 95% CI: 1.07-3.33; p = 0.029] were clinical factors associated with the presence of myocardial viability.

Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that F18-FDG PET was able to identify 55% of patients with ischaemic heart disease with viability in more than 10% of the total myocardium when using a 17-segment model.

Keywords: fluorine‐18 fluorodeoxyglucose; hibernation; myocardial viability; positron emission tomography.