1. Dipyridamole stress echocardiography stratifies outcomes of asymptomatic patients with recent myocardial revascularization.
- Author
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Tiziano Moccetti, Francesco Faletra, Paolo Cattaneo, Mariagrazia Rossi, Elena Pasotti, Cecilia Fantoni, Claudio Anzà, and Massimo Baravelli
- Abstract
Abstract Background Patients with previous myocardial revascularization, even if symptom-free, remain at risk of subsequent cardiac events, so that a non-invasive tool able to stratify this population is wishful. Objectives To assess the prognostic value of dipyridamole stress echocardiography (DipSE) in a population of asymptomatic patients following complete myocardial revascularization, either by coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Methods We retrospectively evaluated 104 consecutive symptom-free patients (mean age 67 ± 9.3 years, 75 males) with recent (Results Myocardial ischemia was identified in 23 patients (22.1%). During a mean follow up of 21 months, 7 (30.4%) out of these patients suffered cardiac events. Among the remaining 81 patients (77.9%) with negative DipSE results, 7 (8.6%) experienced cardiac events. At multivariable analysis only a positive DipSE (odds ratio 3.9, P = 0.03), wall motion score index at peak of stress (OR 3.6, P = 0.04) and a prior myocardial infarction (odds ratio 3.5, P = 0.04) achieved statistical significance for cardiac events. Moreover, DipSE effectively stratified patients into a high and low risk group according to presence of inducible ischemia (event rate per year 16% vs 4.8%, P = 0.02). Conclusions DipSE yields appropriate risk stratification and provides incremental prognostic value over clinical variables even in asymptomatic patients with prior complete myocardial revascularization. A negative DipSE portends a benign prognosis ( [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008