Evidence of impaired myocardial perfusion and abnormal left ventricular function during exercise in patients with isolated systolic narrowing of the left anterior descending coronary artery

Seven men ranging in age from 35 to 63 years with a chest pain syndrome and cineangiographically documented systolic narrowing of the left anterior descending coronary artery underwent thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy and gated cardiac blood pool imaging. Grade II (50 to 75 percent) systolic coronary arterial constriction was present in three patients and grade III constriction (greater than 75 percent) in four. Three of the four patients with grade III constriction had an exercise-induced perfusion abnormality in the thallium-201 scintigram and an impaired left ventricular ejection fraction response during exercise. (In two patients the left ventricular ejection fraction did not change and in one patient it decreased.) Each of the three patients with grade II constriction had normal thallium-201 perfusion and a normal increase in ejection fraction during exercise. These data provide evidence of abnormal myocardial perfusion and impaired left ventricular function during exercise in patients with high grade systolic coronary arterial narrowing.