Introduction and objectives: The aims of this study were to create a Spanish database of normal myocardial perfusion SPECT (single-photon emission computed tomography) data, termed the normal Spanish database, and to compare it with a database of normal data from the North American population.
Methods: We selected 104 healthy volunteers (45 female, mean age 42+/-14 years) who underwent SPECT during stress and at rest. The findings were analyzed using the 4DM-SPECT commercial software package. The resulting normal Spanish database for males and females was compared with the North American population database (from 70 men and 60 women) provided with the 4DM-SPECT software.
Results: In the Spanish database, the highest percentage uptake during both stress and rest was observed in medial-lateral region and the lowest, in the basal-septal region. The percentage uptake in the anterior-medial region was significantly lower in women than men, while uptake in the inferior, medial-septal and apical regions was lower in men than women. Data values in the Spanish database were significantly lower for the majority of heart regions than those in the database with the 4DM-SPECT software.
Conclusions: A Spanish database of normal myocardial perfusion SPECT data was created and included separate data for men and women. Significant differences were observed between this database and a commercial North American database that is commonly used in semiquantitative studies.