Free fatty acid scintigraphy in patients with successful thrombolysis after acute myocardial infarction.

Twenty-three patients with successful intracoronary thrombolytic therapy in the acute stage of infarction underwent scintigraphy with radioiodinated heptadecanoic acid two weeks after myocardial infarction and three to 12 months later. In patients with normal or slow elimination rates in the infarct area, ejection fractions were significantly higher than in patients with fast elimination (70 +/- 6% vs 47 +/- 13%, P less than 0.05). Consequently, left ventricular damage score was lower in patients with normal and slow elimination rates (1.7 +/- 1.6 vs 4.9 +/- 2.4, P less than 0.05). Repeated scintigraphy showed normalization of the elimination rates in patients with previously slow elimination, except in one patient in whom the elimination rate remained slow, patients with fast elimination rates remained unaltered. It is concluded that scintigraphy with radioiodinated heptadecanoic acid is an appropriate method to assess myocardial viability in patients with successful thrombolytic therapy.