Adenosine triphosphate stress (99m)Tc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile gated myocardial perfusion imaging efficacy in diagnosing stent restenosis following coronary stent implantation

Coronary stent restenosis rate following implantation is considerably high. The adenosine stress gated myocardial perfusion imaging (G-MPI) method has been widely used in the diagnosis, risk stratification and prognosis evaluation of coronary heart disease; however, the high cost of adenosine limits its clinical application. The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) stress (99m)Tc-methoxyisobutylisonitrile ((99m)Tc-MIBI) G-MPI for diagnosis in-stent restenosis following coronary stent implantation. Data from 66 patients with typical angina pectoris symptoms who had undergone percutaneous coronary stent implantation >3 months prior to participation in the study were analyzed. All the patients underwent ATP stress (99m)Tc-MIBI G-MPI and coronary artery angiography as the criterion diagnostic standard within 1 month. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of ATP stress (99m)Tc-MIBI G-MPI in the assessment of in-stent restenosis were calculated. In addition, Fisher's exact probability methods were used to compare differences between experimental groups. Among 66 patients with a total of 99 implanted coronary arterial branches, 39 patients (59%) with 45 coronary arteries (45%) presented in-stent restenosis. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive and negative predictive value of ATP stress (99m)Tc-MIBI G-MPI for assessing stent restenosis in all patients were 85, 89, 86, 92 and 80%, respectively. Similarly, these values in patients with myocardial infarction were 79, 88, 83, 88 and 78%, respectively, while in patients without myocardial infarction the values were 90, 91, 90, 95 and 83%, respectively. Therefore, the diagnostic efficacy of ATP stress (99m)Tc-MIBI G-MPI in patients without myocardial infarction was higher compared with those with myocardial infarction; however, no significant difference was observed between the two groups. Furthermore, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for diagnosing LAD stent restenosis were higher compared with LCX and RCA stent restenosis, but with no significant differences observed (P>0.05). The present results indicated that ATP stress (99m)Tc-MIBI G-MPI had a high clinical application value for diagnosing in-stent restenosis following coronary stent implantation as a non-invasive examination tool, with the advantages of safety and low cost.