pyrophosphate and Endomyocardial-Fibrosis

A study of the relationship between the frequency of labelled pyrophosphate detection in the heart muscle and the incidence of clinical signs of heart failure or angina in 185 postmyocardial-infarction patients demonstrated that the distribution of patients with postinfarction cardiosclerosis among the positive and negative 99mTc-pyrophosphate scintigraphy groups was governed by the presence of heart failure in these patients, a finding suggestive of the scarry fields within the myocardium as the principal cause of myocardial accumulation of labelled pyrophosphate in postinfarction cardiosclerosis. Pyrophosphate accumulation in patients with postinfarction cardiosclerosis can be regarded as an indicator of unfavorable developments, as confirmed by one-year follow-up results in 114 patients.

Topics: Adult; Aged; Cardiomyopathy, Dilated; Diphosphates; Endomyocardial Fibrosis; Female; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Myocardial Infarction; Myocardium; Prognosis; Radionuclide Imaging; Technetium; Technetium Tc 99m Pyrophosphate