Preclinical coronary endothelial dysfunction in Egyptian Behçet’s disease patients; Tc-99m sestamibi pharmacological Gated-SPECT, is it a useful screening tool?

IntroductionBehçet’s disease (BD) is an idiopathic multisystem disorder. Cardiac involvement[cardio-BD] occurs in 7–60% of BD patients. Technetium 99m-Methoxyisobutyl isonitrile (Tc-99m sestamibi) is a myocardial perfusion imaging agent that is used for evaluation of the coronary flow.Aim of the workTo evaluate the usefulness of Dipyridamole pharmacological stress test in conjunction with Tc-99m sestamibi cardiac gated single photon emission computed tomography (GSPECT) to investigate the prevalence of subclinical coronary endothelial dysfunction[SCED] in asymptomatic Egyptian BD patients; also to assess possibly associated clinical predictive variables.Patients and MethodsTwenty-five BD patients without overt cardiac involvement and fifteen healthy controls matched for age, BMI and sex were included. Database included full history, clinical examination, relevant laboratory tests, and Tc-99m sestamibi myocardial GSPECT with coronary angiography[CAG] in GSPECT positive cases. Disease activity was assessed using Behçet’s Disease Current Activity Form (BDCAF).ResultsSCED detected by reduced flow or left ventricular dysfunction (LVD) or both was found in 13/25[52%] of BD-patients[12 males and 1 female] vs. 1/15[6.7%] of controls[P < 0.0001] with normal CAG. Subjects with positive GSPECT had significantly older age[P = 0.01] and longer disease duration (P = 0.02) and were more frequently males (P < 0.0001) than those with negative GSPECT. No statistically significant differences between cases with negative and positive GSPECT were found regarding other clinical or laboratory parameters.ConclusionTc-99m sestamibi GSPECT could be a useful screening tool for detection of SCED in BD patients, so early prophylactic measures and therapy modifications could be considered.