Can the extent of coronary artery disease be predicted from thallium-201 myocardial images?

The accuracy with which the extent of coronary artery disease can be predicted from stress thallium-201 myocardial images has been assessed in 81 patients with chest pain. Whereas the appearance of the myocardial images was both a sensitive means of detecting coronary artery disease (images abnormal in 43 of 47 patients with abnormal coronary arteriograms) and specific in excluding it (images normal in 31 of 34 patients with normal arteriograms), there was poor correlation between the extent of disease predicted from the Tl-201 images and the findings at arteriography. It is concluded that although stress Tl-201 myocardial imaging is a useful method for the noninvasive diagnosis of coronary artery disease, it cannot be relied upon to predict the number of abnormal vessels.