Comparative predictors of mortality among patients referred for stress single-photon emission computed tomography versus positron emission tomography myocardial perfusion imaging.

Background: There is currently little information regarding the usage and comparative predictors of mortality among patients referred for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) versus positron emission tomography (PET) myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) within multimodality imaging laboratories.

Methods: We compared the clinical characteristics and mortality outcomes among 15,718 patients referred for SPECT-MPI and 6202 patients referred for PET-MPI between 2008 and 2017.

Results: Approximately two-thirds of MPI studies were performed using SPECT-MPI. The PET-MPI group was substantially older and included more patients with known coronary artery disease (CAD), hypertension, diabetes, and myocardial ischemia. The annualized mortality rate was also higher in the PET-MPI group, and this difference persisted after propensity matching 3615 SPECT-MPI and 3615 PET-MPI patients to have similar clinical profiles. Among the SPECT-MPI patients, the most potent predictor of mortality was exercise ability and performance, including consideration of patients' mode of stress testing and exercise duration. Among the PET-MPI patients, myocardial flow reserve (MFR) was the most potent predictor of mortality.

Conclusions: In our real-world setting, PET-MPI was more commonly employed among older patients with more cardiac risk factors than SPECT-MPI patients. The most potent predictors of mortality in our SPECT and PET-MPI groups were variables exclusive to each test: exercise ability/capacity for SPECT-MPI patients and MFR for PET-MPI patients.