Association Of Myocardial Perfusion Scintigraphy Findings With Traditional Cardiovascular Risk Factors And Heartscore

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading global cause of morbidity and mortality, primarily due to ischemic heart disease. This study aims to investigate the relationship between myocardial perfusion scintigraphy (MPS) findings and HeartScore values, and to evaluate its association with conventional cardiovascular risk factors. In our study, patients who were referred to the Department of Nuclear Medicine for MPS between April 1 and June 30, 2024, were included. Demographic and clinical data were collected from pre-scan anamnesis forms, including age, sex, diabetes mellitus (DM), hypercholesterolemia (HL), body mass index (BMI), coronary artery disease (CAD), smoking status, and family history. HeartScore values were calculated in a total of 144 patients, including 79 (all eligible for HeartScore calculation) with ischemia and 65 randomly selected controls without ischemia, to estimate the 10-year cardiovascular risk. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Out of the 1,509 patients evaluated, MPS identified ischemia in 228 cases, infarction in 40, and normal perfusion in 1,241. A statistically significant increase in the incidence of ischemia was observed in parallel with rising HeartScore values (p = 0.008). MPS findings were significantly associated with the presence of CAD, HL and BMI (p < 0.05). However, no statistically significant association was found with DM. The significant association between MPS findings and estimated future cardiovascular risk supports the use of HeartScore as a valuable pre-screening tool. The presence of known risk factors, particularly CAD and HL, significantly increased the likelihood of ischemia on MPS, whereas BMI was inversely associated.