Identifying which treated hypertensive patients without known coronary artery disease should be tested for the presence of myocardial ischemia by perfusion imaging.

Abstract

Stress dipyridamole technetium-99(m) sestamibi single photon emission computed tomographic imaging was used to study myocardial perfusion in 1116 hypertensive patients without known coronary artery disease (CAD). The test confirmed the presence of CAD in 28.9% of patients. As expected, patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) had a significantly higher prevalence of myocardial perfusion abnormalities (35.9% vs 23.9%; odds ratio, 1.79; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.38-2.33; P