Prognostic value of stress myocardial perfusion positron emission tomography: results from a multicenter observational registry.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this multicenter registry was to study the prognostic value of positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) and the improved classification of risk in a large cohort of patients with suspected or known coronary artery disease (CAD). BACKGROUND: Limited prognostic data are available for MPI with PET. METHODS: A total of 7,061 patients from 4 centers underwent a clinically indicated rest/stress rubidium-82 PET MPI, with a median follow-up of 2.2 years. The primary outcome of this study was cardiac death (n = 169), and the secondary outcome was all-cause death (n = 570). Net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination analyses were performed. RESULTS: Risk-adjusted hazard of cardiac death increased with each 10% myocardium abnormal with mildly, moderately, or severely abnormal stress PET (hazard ratio [HR] 2.3 [95% CI 1.4 to 3.8; p = 0.001], HR 4.2 [95% CI 2.3 to 7.5; p < 0.001], and HR 4.9 [95% CI 2.5 to 9.6; p < 0.0001], respectively [normal MPI referent]). Addition of percent myocardium ischemic and percent myocardium scarred to clinical information (age, female sex, body mass index, history of hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, smoking, angina, beta-blocker use, prior revascularization, and resting heart rate) improved the model performance (C-statistic 0.805 [95% CI 0.772 to 0.838] to 0.839 [95% CI 0.809 to 0.869]) and risk reclassification for cardiac death (NRI 0.116 [95% CI 0.021 to 0.210]), with smaller improvements in risk assessment for all-cause death. CONCLUSIONS: In patients with known or suspected CAD, the extent and severity of ischemia and scar on PET MPI provided powerful and incremental risk estimates of cardiac death and all-cause death compared with traditional coronary risk factors.