The use of stress echocardiography for prognostication in coronary artery disease: an overview.
OBJECTIVE
Stress echocardiography has a high accuracy for the detection of coronary artery disease. Additionally, it provides clinically useful prognostic information, such as resting left ventricular function, myocardial viability, stress-induced ischemia, vascular extent of wall motion abnormalities, and changes in end-systolic volume and ejection fraction with stress.


BACKGROUND
The timing, extent, and severity of the stress-induced wall motion abnormalities are important determinants of long-term prognosis. Previous studies have shown the efficacy of stress echocardiography in predicting long-term cardiac events in mixed patient groups and the value of this test in selected patient subsets.


CONCLUSIONS
This review attempts to define the role of stress echocardiography for prognostication in coronary artery disease, pointing out the ability of this technique to identify low-risk and high-risk subsets among patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease and thus guide patient management decisions.
Biagini
Elena
E
Department of Cardiology, Thoraxcenter, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Elhendy
Abdou
A
Bax
Jeroen J
JJ
Schinkel
Arend F L
AF
Poldermans
Don
D
D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D025401:Echocardiography, Stress / Q000379:methods*; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D011379:Prognosis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results