Myocardial viability in patients with chronic coronary artery disease and previous myocardial infarction: comparison of myocardial contrast echocardiography and myocardial perfusion scintigraphy.

The aim of this study was to compare perfusion patterns on myocardial contrast echocardiography with those on myocardial perfusion scintigraphy for the assessment of myocardial viability in patients with previous myocardial infarction. Accordingly, perfusion scores with the two techniques were compared in 91 ventricular regions in 21 patients with previous (>6 weeks old) myocardial infarction. Complete concordance between the two techniques was found in 63 (69%) regions; 25 (27%) regions were discordant by only 1 grade, and complete discordance (2 grades) was found in only 3 (3%) regions. A kappa statistic of 0.65 indicated good concordance between the two techniques. Although the scores on both techniques demonstrated a relation with the wall motion score, the correlation between the myocardial contrast echocardiography and wall motion scores was closer (r = -0.63 vs r = -0.50, p = 0.05). It is concluded that myocardial contrast echocardiography provides similar information regarding myocardial viability as myocardial perfusion scintigraphy in patients with coronary artery disease and previous myocardial infarction.