Open AccessStress ECHO beyond coronary artery disease. Is it the holy grail of cardiovascular imaging?
Author(s) -
Aggeli Constantina,
Polytarchou Kali,
Varvarousis Dimitrios,
Kastellanos Stellios,
Tousoulis Dimitrios
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
clinical cardiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.263
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1932-8737
pISSN - 0160-9289
DOI - 10.1002/clc.23094
Subject(s) - medicine , coronary artery disease , asymptomatic , cardiology , etiology , holy grail , cardiomyopathy , disease , stress echocardiography , valvular heart disease , intensive care medicine , heart failure , radiology , world wide web , computer science
Stress echocardiography (SE) is a very useful method in clinical practice, because it offers important information of both the patient's functional status and hemodynamic changes during stress. Therefore, SE provides strong diagnostic and prognostic data in a wide spectrum of cardiovascular diseases. This review summarizes the clinical applications of SE in conditions beyond coronary artery disease (CAD) and highlights practical recommendations and key issues for each condition that need further investigation. SE is an established method for the evaluation of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients with valvular heart disease (VHD) and cardiomyopathies, and provides important information regarding prognosis and management of patients with congenital heart disease, pulmonary hypertension or diastolic dysfunction. Moreover, when one or multiple VHD and cardiomyopathy or CAD coexist in one patient, SE is a very useful clinical tool for the evaluation of etiology and symptomatology.