The diagnosis of coronary-artery disease has become increasingly complex. Many different results, obtained from tests with substantial imperfections, must be integrated into a diagnostic conclusion about the probability of disease in a given patient. To approach this problem in a practical manner, we reviewed the literature to estimate the pretest likelihood of disease (defined by age, sex and symptoms) and the sensitivity and specificity of four diagnostic tests: stress electrocardiography, cardiokymography, thallium scintigraphy and cardiac fluoroscopy. With this information, test results can be analyzed by use of Bayes' theorem of conditional probability. This approach has several advantages. It pools the diagnostic experience of many physicians ans integrates fundamental pretest clinical descriptors with many varying test results to summarize reproducibly and meaningfully the probability of angiographic coronary-artery disease. This approach also aids, but does not replace, the physician's judgment and may assit in decisions on cost effectiveness of tests.

Myocardial perfusion SPECT yields incremental prognostic information toward the identification of cardiac death. Patients with mildly abnormal scans after exercise stress are at low risk for cardiac death but intermediate risk for nonfatal myocardial infarction and thus may benefit from a noninvasive strategy and may not require invasive management.

anterior and lateral in d-malposition (P < 0.05). Complete hemodynamic data were obtained in 29 patients. Complete mixing of venous return occurred in four patients with atresia of one valve. In the remainder complete mixing occurred in 36%, unfavorable streaming in 12% and favorable streaming in 52%. Semilunar valve position and pulmonary stenosis did not affect the nature of mixing. Systemic arterial (SA) minus pulmonary arterial 02 saturation was positive and significantly higher in patients with malposition with lateral OLCs than anterior OLCs (P < 0.001). However 79% of SA 02 saturation variation could be predicted from pulmonary and systemic blood flow alone.