OBJECTIVES We evaluated dobutamine stress echocardiography as an initial screening test for a cardiac evaluation before a liver transplant. MATERIALS AND METHODS We retrospectively examined 111 liver transplant candidates who had undergone previous cardiac evaluation; 30 of whom had undergone a liver transplant. RESULTS Eighty patients (72.1%) completed a dobutamine stress echocardiography ...

BACKGROUND Physical stress echocardiography is an established methodology for diagnosis and risk stratification of coronary artery disease in patients with physical capacity. In obese (body mass index ≥ 30 kg/m2) the usefulness of pharmacological stress echocardiography has been demonstrated; however, has not been reported the use of physical stress echocardiography in this growing population g...

BACKGROUND Patients undergoing major vascular surgery are at a relatively high risk of cardiac events, and pharmacological stress echocardiography is increasingly used for perioperative risk stratification. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the value of dipyridamole echocardiography test (up to 0.84 mg/kg over 10 minutes) in predicting cardiac events in a large-scale, multicenter, pr...

Echocardiography has a central role for the diagnosis and management of patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease. Besides the fact that it provides an essential role in the differential diagnosis of patients presenting with chest pain in the emergency department, echocardiography provides a comprehensive non-invasive haemodynamic and functional assessment of those patients. Stre...

Dobutamine stress echocardiography is associated with a very low rate of serious complications, lower than 0.5% (death, infarction or sustained ventricular tachycardia). We report the case of a 75 year-old female patient that suffered a fatal left ventricular free wall rupture during a dobutamine stress echocardiography after acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND Contrast echocardiography is a precise tool for the non-invasive assessment of myocardial function and perfusion. Side effects of contrast echocardiography resulting from contrast-agent induced myocardial micro-lesions have been found in animals. The goal of this study is to measure markers of myocardial necrosis, inflammation and oxidative stress in humans to evaluate potential side...

BACKGROUND Exercise and pharmacological stress echocardiography have emerged as convenient alternatives to myocardial scintigraphy. The objective of this study was to compare in the same patients the diagnostic values of exercise, dobutamine, and dipyridamole stress echocardiography tests for detection of myocardial ischemia. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed exercise (maximal treadmill Bruce ...

Graft failure or progressive native vessel disease can be a serious problem after coronary artery bypass grafting. However, because of poor image quality it may be difficult to evaluate these patients by transthoracic stress echocardiography. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to evaluate the effectiveness of dobutamine stress echocardiography in the detection of myocardial territories w...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the discriminatory value and compare the predictive performance of six non-invasive tests used for perioperative cardiac risk stratification in patients undergoing major vascular surgery. DESIGN Meta-analysis of published reports. METHODS Eight studies on ambulatory electrocardiography, seven on exercise electrocardiography, eight on radionuclide ventriculography, 23 o...

1. BACKGROUND The objective of guidelines is to enhance appropriateness of practice, improve quality of care, lead to better patient outcomes, and help authorities to decide on the approval of diagnostic or therapeutic procedures. For patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), one of the greatest challenges of our heath care system, a variety of diagnostic procedures is available at varying f...