OBJECTIVES To compare transesophageal atrial pacing stress echocardiography with dobutamine stress echocardiography for feasibility, safety, duration, patient acceptance and concordance in inducing wall motion abnormalities. BACKGROUND Transesophageal atrial pacing is an effective method of increasing heart rate and has been used in the assessment of coronary artery disease. METHODS Both te...

Stress echocardiography is the combination of 2D echocardiography with a physical, pharmacological or electrical stress. The diagnostic end point for the detection of myocardial ischemia is the induction of a transient worsening in regional function during stress. Stress echocardiography provides similar diagnostic and prognostic accuracy as radionuclide stress perfusion imaging, but at a subst...

BACKGROUND The prognoses of patients with false-negative test results by myocardial single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and by stress echocardiography are known to be different; the prognosis with false-negative SPECT is better in suspected and proven coronary artery disease (CAD). METHODS AND RESULTS Three strategies by which to diagnose CAD were compared for their cost-effect...

AIMS The aim of this review was to define the place of stress echocardiography in the context of perfusion scintigraphy for the detection of coronary artery disease (CAD) and the assessment of cardiac risk. Stress echocardiography has the benefits of widespread availability, relatively low cost, portability, absence of radiation, and the determination of the ischaemic threshold. However, the ec...