Abstract: Objective To evaluate the value of dipyridamole stress 210Tl myocardial SPECT in detecting dysfunction of coronary microcirculation.Methods Forty-eight patients diagnosed with cardiac syndrome X underwent dipyridamole stress 210Tl myocardial SPECT.Dipyridamole (0.56 mg/kg) was intravenously injected over 4 min followed by 201Tl (111 MBq) injection at 2 min after dipyridamole administration.Image was acquired at 10 min and 240 min post-injection and co-analyzed by over two experienced doctors in nuclear medicine after three-dimensional reconstruction.The patients with " reverse redistribution" underwent repeated dipyridamole stress 201Tl SPECT after medical therapy for 2 weeks.The clinical symptoms and results of the treadmill exercise test pre-and post-therapy were compared.Results Fortytwo patients (42/48,87.50%) showed segmental defects:"reverse redistribution" on delayed (240 min)201Tl images.After medical treatment,36 cases of the 42 "reverse redistribution" patients had improvement in both clinical symptoms and treadmill exercise test.Post-treatment 201Tl imaging showed improvement in 45/49 (91.84%) defect segments.Six of the 42 patients had no improvement in clinical symptoms and/or treadmill exercise test.Post-treatment 201Tl imaging showed no improvement in all the 7 defect segments on the first scan.Conclusion Dipyridamole stress 201Tl myocardial SPECT may be valuable in evaluation of impaired coronary microcirculation associated with cardiac syndrome X.