Increasing Oxygen Consumption in Patients With Single-Vessel Coronary Artery Disease

Background Recent evidence suggests that, in coronary artery disease (CAD), myocardial blood flow (MBF) regulation is abnormal in regions supplied by apparently normal coronary arteries. However, the relation between this alteration and MBF response to increasing metabolic demand has not been fully elucidated. Methods and Results MBF was assessed at baseline, during atrial pacing tachycardia, and after dipyridamole (0.56 mg/kg IV over 4 minutes) in 9 normal subjects and in 24 patients with ischemia on effort, no myocardial infarction, and isolated left anterior descending (n=19) or left circumflex (n=5) coronary artery stenosis (.50% diameter narrowing). Perfusion of both poststenotic (S) and normally supplied (N) areas was measured off therapy by positron emission tomography and [13Nlammonia. Normal subjects and CAD patients showed similar rate-pressure products at baseline, during pacing, and after dipyridamole. In CAD patients, MBF was lower in S than in N territories at rest (0.68±0.14 versus 0.74±0.18 mL* min. g-, respectively,