exercise stress echocardiography

Indications

• suspected of coronary artery disease
• recommended when baseline ECG is abnormal* or when information on the area of myocardium at risk is needed
• can can identify asymptomatic patients at high risk after revascularization
  • these patients do not necessarily benefit from repeat revascularization

* left-bundle branch block acceptable for exercise stress echocardiography

Advantages

• exercise data are acquired along with imaging for wall motion abnormalities that indicate ischemia
• entire study is complete in < 1 hour

Disadvantages

• image quality is suboptimal in some patients but can be improved by use of echo-contrast

Notes

• a wearable device consisting of an 8 uM stretchable strip of sensors applied to the chest to obtain continuous cardiac ultrasound images can facilitate obtaining ultrasound images during exercise including real-time estimates of stroke volume, cardiac output, ejection fraction, wall-motion abnormalities, & chamber size

More general terms

• exercise stress testing
• stress echocardiography