Stress/Rest Myocardial Perfusion Abnormalities by Gated SPECT: Still the Best Predictor of Cardiac Events in Stable

The prognostic power of myocardial perfusion imaging in pa-tients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) has been demonstrated since planar imaging. We aimed to investigate whether gated SPECT retains this value in current cardiology if compared with a complete diagnostic work-up and with more recent prognostic indicators.Methods:We selected from our database a cohort of 676 consecutive inpatients who underwent a complete diagnos-tic work-up that included gated SPECT and coronary arteriogra-phy for known or suspected IHD. Patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI), previous coronary artery bypass surgery, or overt hyperthyroidism and patients who were undergoing dialysis treatment were excluded. During follow-up (median, 37 mo), 24 patients died from cardiac causes and 19 experienced a nonfatal MI. Results: The following were determined to be independent predictors of event-free survival (cardiac death and nonfata