[Long-term prognosis in patients with acute chest pain. The predictive value of myocardial scintigraphy].

UNLABELLED: In order to perform risk stratification 158 patients with acute chest pain, but without myocardial infarction (non-AMI) underwent exercise 201-thallium scintigraphy at the time of discharge. The patients, of whom 38 (24%) were women, were followed for seven years. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity and predictive values of the outcome of the examination for identification of patients, who had a cardiac event (cardiac death or later non-fatal AMI) during follow-up, was calculated. Forty-one had a cardiac event during follow-up. The highest sensitivity (85%) was achieved by the combination of transient defect and/or persistent defect and/or abnormal ST-segment response. The highest specificity was provided by a transient defect (90%) and the predictive value of a positive test was 60%-17 of 29 patients with a transient defect had a cardiac event during follow-up. Patients with a normal test had an excellent prognosis, 94% of 82 patients were free of cardiac events during follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Exercise 201-thallium scintigraphy is suitable for long-term risk stratification in patients with chest pain and suspicion of but unconfirmed myocardial infarction, because high and very low risk subsets can be identified at the time of discharge.