Abstract: We performed stress and rest myocardial perfusion tomography imaging in 31 patients before and after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty(PTCA). The median time intervals before and after PTCA were 7.5 and 47.5 days respectively. There were 25 males and 6 females. Mean lesion grade pre-PTCA was 82.58%±16.04 % and mean residual lesion grade post-PTCA was 17.7%±6.21%. No major complications were encountered. Myocardial perfusion tomography imaging showed 26 cases with myocardial ischemia reverted to normal or approximately normal after PTCA. In 90.3% of the patients exercise stress was more improved than before PTCA.We conclude that exercise stress myocardial tomography imaging is a noninvasive and reliable method for the assesssment of PTCA therapeutic effect.

Key words: myocardial nuclide perfusion, PTCA, coronary heart disease