Prognostic impact of stress testing in coronary artery disease.

Observational data prospectively collected permit the examination of a complex set of decisions, including the decision not to perform any stress testing. Patients with or without previous myocardial infarction admitted for coronary evaluation and not submitted to any stress testing because of clinical reasons are at a higher risk for subsequent death. For prognostication, no test has been better validated than exercise electrocardiography: it can identify patients at low and high risk for future cardiac events among those without symptoms, with typical chest pain, and with previous myocardial infarction. In patients with triple-vessel disease, the results of exercise also allow those at low and high risk to be recognized. Both exercise radionuclide angiography and 201Tl scintigraphy (the latter in larger patient populations) have also demonstrated significant prognostic value on patients with or without previous myocardial infarction. Neither one has shown superiority to the other in prognostication. So far, they have been considered the only viable alternatives to exercise electrocardiography stress testing for diagnosis and prognostication. However, their costs limit their extensive application. Preliminary data suggest that intravenous dipyridamole echocardiography can be used for both diagnosis and prognostication of coronary artery disease; moreover, the prognostic information derived from dipyridamole echocardiography testing seems independent of and additive to that provided by exercise electrocardiography. Further prospective studies on larger patient populations are needed to better define the prognostic value of dipyridamole echocardiography testing.