title: Prognostic value of dobutamine echocardiography in patients with high pretest likelihood of coronary artery disease.
abstract: To examine the value of transient regional asynergy on dobutamine stress echocardiography as a noninvasive predictor of future cardiac events, 51 symptomatic patients (aged 54 +/- 9 years) with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD) were studied using an incremental regimen of 5, 10, 15 and 20 micrograms/kg/min. Pretest likelihood of CAD was (mean +/- standard error of the percentage) 79.7 +/- 5.6% before and 83.4 +/- 5.2% after exercise electrocardiography using probability analysis based on age, sex and symptoms. Two-dimensional images were analyzed with reference to an 11-segment model and gave good interrater agreement. During 24 +/- 4 months (range 19 to 32) of follow-up, 23 patients had events (1 myocardial infarction, 9 unstable angina, 10 coronary bypass surgery, 3 coronary angioplasty) and 28 were event free. Age, proportion with baseline asynergy and both pretest echocardiographic ejection fraction and its response to dobutamine were similar in these 2 groups (all p = not significant). Transient asynergy was seen in 17 of 23 patients (74%) with and 8 of 28 patients (29%) without events (p < 0.01); 5 of 6 patients (83%) with involvement of 3 segments had events. Myocardial infarction or unstable angina occurred in 8 of 25 (32%) with a positive and 2 of 26 (8%) with a negative stress echocardiogram (p < 0.05). Both exercise duration (389 +/- 195 vs 517 +/- 237 seconds, p < 0.05) and time to diagnostic ST-segment shift (291 +/- 192 vs 447 +/- 212 seconds, p = 0.05) were shorter in those with inducible asynergy.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine (Clinical Cardiology), Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Mazeika
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nadazdin
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Oakley
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000789:Angina, Unstable / Q000503:physiopathology; D006328:Cardiac Catheterization; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D004280:Dobutamine; D004452:Echocardiography; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013318:Stroke Volume / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D004280:Dobutamine