Tomographic myocardial perfusion imaging with technetium-99m-teboroxime at rest and after dipyridamole

This study was done to determine whether the rapidly clearing myocardial perfusion agent ^99mTc-teboroxime (SQ 30217, Cardiotec®) could be combined with tomographic imaging to accurately quantify regional myocardial blood flow distribution in anesthetized dogs. Following stenosis of the anterior descending (LAD, n = 10) or circumflex (LCX, n = 5) coronary arteries, teboroxime was administered simultaneously with radioactive microspheres, at rest and following infusion of dipyridamole (0.15 mg/kg/min x 4 min). Tomographic imaging began 1 min after each teboroxime injection and continued for 12 min. For LAD stenosis, when the dipyridamole study was performed first, teboroxime activity in the center of the ischemic region was closely correlated with tissue microsphere content. However, the severity of the dipyridamole-induced flow deficit was underestimated by teboroxime when the rest study was performed first. Our results show that despite rapid myocardial clearance, tomographic imaging of ^99mTc-teboroxime provides reasonably accurate quantitation of dipyridamole-induced anterior wall perfusion defects, but that the flow deficit is underestimated when a rest study is performed first or when the defect is located in the inferior wall.