Regional wall thickening of left ventricle evaluated by gated positron emission tomography in relation to myocardial perfusion and glucose metabolism. Regional wall thickening was assessed by electrocardiographically gated positron emission tomography (ECG-gated PET) in 26 patients with coronary artery disease. The standardized percent count increase from end-diastole to end-systole (S-percent Cl) was calculated as an index of wall thickening. The S-percent Cl was 77.8% +/- 28.9% in the segments with normal perfusion at rest, 51.9% +/- 29.5% in those with mild hypoperfusion, and 32.8% +/- 30.9% in those with severe hypoperfusion (p less than 0.001, each). Among the segments with resting hypoperfusion, the S-percent Cl was 38.9% +/- 31.5% in those without stress-induced ischemia and 48.7% +/- 30.9% in those with ischemia (p less than 0.05). Furthermore, among resting severe hypoperfusion, the S-percent Cl was 23.0% +/- 23.9% in the segments without fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake and 37.8 +/- 32.9% in those with FDG uptake (p less than 0.05). These results suggest that stress-induced ischemia and FDG accumulation correlated with wall thickening. Thus, quantitative analysis of regional wall thickening seems to be useful for combined analysis of regional function, perfusion and metabolism in coronary patients. 