Exercise Echocardiography and Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography in The Assessment of Suspected or Known Coronary Artery Disease

Exercise echocardiography has become a significant tool of non-invasive valuation of coronary artery disease (CAD). The Exercise echocardiography and dobutamine stress echocardiography are widely applied methods with different clinical procedures and indications. Objective: To determine the exercise echocardiography and dobutamine stress echocardiography in the assessment of suspected or known coronary artery disease. Methods: 260 consecutive patients endured Stress Echocardiography in the Cardiology department of NICVD Karachi for one-year duration from January 2021 to December 2021. The treadmill was used for Exercise echocardiography applying the Bruce protocol. The standard method was applied for dobutamine stress echocardiography. The Stress Echocardiography was taken as positive on the basis of the appearance of worsening or new wall motion abnormalities. Results: Exercise echocardiography performed by 160 patients and DSE in 100 subjects with mean age of 47.21 and 53.10 years, correspondingly. Males were dominated in both groups. The both groups have similar risk factors. In the diagnosis of CAD, Exercise echocardiography was used more often than dobutamine stress echocardiography (61.5% vs 38.5%). The Viability tests have been carried out exclusively by DSE. The frequency of adverse events was 29% in dobutamine stress echocardiography and no one has side-effects in exercise echocardiography. Stress-related dysfunction of left ventricle was much communal in dobutamine stress echocardiography. Conclusion: Exercise Echocardiography is a better and safer non-invasive imaging method among subjects who can execute exercise, but DSE is further beneficial for pre-operative evaluation, viability and patients who are disabled physically for ergometer and treadmill exercise test.