Prognostic value of myocardial perfusion imaging in patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease

Myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) provides important prognostic information in patients with suspected or known coronary artery disease (CAD). There is well-documented evidence that patients with a normal or near-normal MPI study have a low cardiac event rate in the subsequent 1-2 years, whereas an abnormal MPI scan is indicative of increased risk (up to ten-fold) of such an event. Moreover. recent data indicate that MPI provides twice as much prognostic information compared with clinical and stress variables in these settings. Thus, MPI can be used as a 'gateway' to appropriate referral for invasive evaluation, enabling management to be targeted to high-risk patient groups to improve outcome. (Eur Heart J Supplements 2001; 3 (Suppl F): F5-F7) (C) 2001 The European Society of Cardiology.