Selection of angina-free patients with severe left ventricular dysfunction for myocardial revascularization.

Stress thallium-201 myocardial imaging was used in two angina-free patients with severe congestive heart failure to identify clinically silent areas of ischemic myocardium and to distinguish between scar and reversibly ischemic myocardium as a cause for akinesia of left ventricular wall segments. Subsequent myocardial revascularization in these patients led to considerable improvement in their clinical state and findings in postoperative nuclear scans. Thus, stress myocardial imaging may be useful in selecting patients with severe left ventricular failure but no angina pectoris for myocardial revascularization.