Comparison of cold pressor and exercise radionuclide angiocardiography in coronary artery disease.

To investigate the role of the cold pressor test (CPT) with radionuclide angiocardiography in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD), we performed angiocardiography in 52 patients (18 with angiographically normal coronary arteries and 34 with CAD) during the resting state, CPT, and supine bicycle exercise (EX). In normal subjects, left ventricular ejection fraction (EF) was unchanged between rest (58 +/- 9%) and CPT (59 +/- 9%, p = ns), but increased during maximal EX (69 +/- 9%, p less than 0.01).