Cardiac function and myocardial perfusion were assessed by exercise-stress thallium SPECT and resting gated blood pool SPECT techniques before and after 47 successful coronary angioplasties. Thallium perfusion was analyzed visually and quantitatively in stress and resting studies. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and peak filling rate (PFR) were calculated and regional wall motion was scored by amplitude and phase images in radionuclide planar and tomographic imagings. The thallium redistribution in delayed or resting SPECTs was more sensitive (87%) for detecting myocardial ischemia compared to symptoms (36%) and ECG changes (60%). An exercise capacity, LVEF, PFR, and the scores of perfusion and regional wall motion were improved significantly after coronary angioplasty. Stress thallium and gated blood pool SPECTs showed the improvements of myocardial perfusion in 159 (79%) of 201 segments and regional wall motion in 47 (51%) of 92 segments, respectively. These results suggest that the combined use of stress thallium SPECT, gated blood pool planar and SPECT techniques can contribute not only to the assessment of the efficacy of coronary angioplasty but also to detecting the mismatching of myocardial perfusion and contraction ("myocardial hibernation") in infarct-related myocardial lesions.