Diagnosis of coronary artery disease in patients with permanent cardiac pacemaker by dobutamine stress echocardiography or exercise thallium-201 myocardial tomography.
This study evaluated the use of dobutamine stress echocardiography and exercise thallium-201 myocardial computed tomography (CT) in the diagnosis of coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients with permanent transvenous pacemaker with the electrode implanted in the right ventricle (RV). Twenty-nine consecutive patients with pacemaker underwent dobutamine stress echocardiography, exercise thallium-201 myocardial CT, and coronary arteriography over a period of 8 +/- 1 days. None of these patients had suffered a myocardial infarction (MI). The cardiac rhythm of every patient was electrically paced during echocardiography and tomography. Sixteen (55%) patients showed CAD on angiography (stenosis > or = 50% of the luminal diameter of a major epicardial vessel). The detection sensitivity for CAD was 94% for the tomography and 88% for the echocardiography (P = NS). The difference between the sensitivities of the two techniques in detecting CAD based on the affected coronary artery was not statistically significant. Of the 13 patients without CAD, tomography showed a positive result in nine cases, i.e., a specificity of 31%, whereas echocardiography showed a positive result in only one case, i.e., a specificity of 92% (P < 0. 01). Exercise thallium-201 myocardial computed tomography produces an increased rate of false-positive results in patients with permanent transvenous cardiac pacemaker (PCP) implanted in the right ventricle (RV). Dobutamine stress echocardiography can thus be used to reduce considerably the level of false-positive results in these patients and still retain a detection sensitivity for CAD equal to that of myocardial tomography.
Ciaroni
S
S
Service de Cardiologie, Hôpital de la Tour, Meyrin_Genève, Switzerland.
Bloch
A
A
Albrecht
L
L
Vanautryve
B
B
D000368:Aged; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D004280:Dobutamine; D004452:Echocardiography; D005080:Exercise Test; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D012307:Risk Factors; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
D013794:Thallium Radioisotopes; D004280:Dobutamine