[Usefulness of exercise echocardiography for the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease].
OBJECTIVE
The purpose was assessing the usefulness of exercise digitalized echocardiography for the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease.


METHODS
Eighty-eight patients, with suspected artery coronary disease, underwent both a exercise echocardiography with treadmill Bruce protocol and a coronary arteriography, within a period less than 2 months, without changes in their clinical evolution. Fifty-eight patients shown significant coronary lesions (> or = 50%).


RESULTS
The exercise echocardiography showed a high sensitivity (74%), significantly greater (p < 0.01) than exercise electrocardiography alone. The sensitivity was fixed by the level of exercise done, reaching 91% when submaximal exercise was achieved, and by the severity and extension of coronary disease, being of 68.5% for a single-vessel, 80% for two-vessel and 100% for three-vessel. The specificity was 87%, considering the lesions lesser than 50% as not significant, and it was 100% when the coronary arteries without disease were taken into account.


CONCLUSIONS
Exercise echocardiography can be a rutinary method for the diagnosis of ischemic heart disease, and it shows a high sensitivity and specificity, greater than exercise electrocardiography alone.
Placer Peralta
L J
LJ
Servicio de Cardiología, Hospital Miguel Servet, Zaragoza.
Sánchez-Navarro
F
F
Monzón Lomas
F J
FJ
Laperal Mur
J R
JR
Diarte de Miguel
J A
JA
Artal Burriel
A
A
Calvo Cebollero
I
I
Alonso Francia
C
C
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods; D004562:Electrocardiography; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
Utilidad de la ecocardiografía de esfuerzo en el diagnóstico de la cardiopatía isquémica.