The radionuclide cardiac ventriculogram. Evaluation of results in twelve hundred consecutive patients.

Coronary artery disease represents one of the most prevalent and serious diseases in the western world. In consequence, there is considerable need for a reliable method for its diagnosis. Until now the best available laboratory methods were the EKG treadmill test and arteriography. The former suffers from the disadvantages of suboptimal sensitivity and specificity, while the latter is both expensive and invasive. The recent introduction of the nuclear cardiac ventriculogram offers new hope for the non-invasive diagnosis of this condition. Based on an experience of more than two thousand patient studies, we consider that this procedure represents a significant advance in the ability to distinguish between the normal and abnormal left ventricle.