Technetium stannous pyrophosphate myocardial scintigraphy for diagnosing and localizing acute myocardial infarcts.

Technetium-99m stannous pyrophosphate (/sup 99m/Tc-PYP) appears to be an ideal agent for the performance of myocardial scintigrams and to have certain advantages over some of the radionuclides that were used in the past for myocardial imaging. It is given intravenously, which is a major advantage over any other radionuclide that requires intracoronary injection for myocardial imaging. It also appears to be safe, is relatively inexpensive, and it has a relatively short half life of approximately six hours, thereby allowing scintigrams to be repeated daily if necessary. In addition, the /sup 99m/Tc-PYP identifies the exact area of damage in the heart and the scintigrams are positive within 12 hours after myocardial infarction. Finally, extensive experience utilizing /sup 99m/Tc-PYP to identify myocardial infarction in patients has recently been obtained at our institution.