RESEARCH ARTICLE


Myocardial Stunning Demonstrated by Adenosine Myocardial Perfusion Scintigraphy as a Predictor of Significant Coronary Artery Disease



M. Salahuddin1, A. Vasudeva1, S.R. Underwood*, 2
1 Kingston Hospital, UK
2 Royal Brompton Hospital, UK


© 2008 Salahuddin et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Imperial College London, Royal Brompton Hospital, Sydney St, London SW3 6NP, UK; E-mail: srunderwood@imperial.ac.uk


Abstract

Myocardial stunning may occur after a brief but profound episode of ischaemia that is insufficient to lead to myocyte necrosis but following which there is depression of myocyte function that persists for hours or days. It is thought to be caused by disordered intra-cellular calcium handling and, when seen after stress-induced myocardial ischemia, it indicates profound ischaemia and potentially an adverse prognosis.