RESUMEN
Background: Asymptomatic patients with severe coronary atherosclerosis may have a normal resting electrocardiogram and stress test. Aim: To assess the yield of Gated Single Photon Emission Computer Tomography (SPECT) for the screening of silent myocardial ischemia in type 2 diabetic patients. Material and methods: Electrocardiogram, stress test and gated-SPECT were performed on 102 type 2 diabetic patients aged 60 ± 8 years without cardiovascular symptoms. AH subjects were also subjected to a coronary angiography whose results were used as gold standard. Results: Gated-SPECT showed myocardial ischemia on 26.5 percent of studied patients. The sensibility, specifity accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value were 92.3 percent, 96 percent, 95 percent, 88.8 percent, 97.3 percent, respectively. In four and six patients ischemia was detected on resting electrocardiogram and stress test, respectively. Eighty percent of patients with doubtful resting electrocardiogram results and 70 percent with a doubtful stress test had a silent myocardial ischemia detected by gated-SPECT There was a good agreement between the results of gated-SPECT and coronary angiography (k =0.873). Conclusions: Gated-SPECT was an useful tool for the screening of silent myocardial ischemia.