title: High dose dipyridamole-echocardiography test in women: correlation with exercise-electrocardiography test and coronary arteriography.
abstract: The value of the exercise-electrocardiography test in detecting coronary artery disease in women is limited. Recently, the high dose dipyridamole-echocardiography test (two-dimensional echocardiographic monitoring during intravenous dipyridamole infusion, up to 0.84 mg/kg body weight over 10 min) was proposed as an alternative to exercise testing for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. To establish the diagnostic usefulness of the exercise-electrocardiography and dipyridamole-echocardiography tests in this disease, the two tests were performed--on different days and in random order--in 83 consecutive women evaluated for a chest pain syndrome. All 83 women had taken no medications for greater than 48 h, and 15 had had a previous myocardial infarction. Positivity of the dipyridamole-echocardiography test was based on detection of a transient asynergy of contraction that was absent or of lesser degree at rest; the exercise-electrocardiography test (by upright cycloergometer) was considered positive when the ST segment was shifted greater than 0.1 mV 0.08 s after the J point. Coronary angiography showed significant coronary artery disease (greater than 70% luminal reduction of at least one major coronary vessel) in 39 women. No significant complications occurred in any patient during either test. Sensitivity and predictive value of a negative test were similar for the dipyridamole-echocardiography and the exercise-electrocardiography test (79 versus 72% and 84 versus 68%, respectively, whereas the dipyridamole-echocardiography test had greater specificity (93 versus 52%, p less than 0.001), accuracy (87 versus 62%, p less than 0.001) and a higher predictive value of a positive test (91 versus 57%, p less than 0.01).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Istituto del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, University of Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Masini
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Picano
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lattanzi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Distante
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: L'Abbate
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D004176:Dipyridamole; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D012737:Sex Factors
chemical_list: D004176:Dipyridamole