Exercise thallium stress testing compared with coronary angiography in patients without exclusions for suboptimal exercise or cardioactive medications.

From 1293 patients who underwent thallium stress testing and 1099 patients who had coronary angiography, a consecutive series of 122 who had both studies is evaluated. This group includes suboptimally exercised patients and those receiving one or several cardiovascular drugs that were not discontinued prior to exercise. When compared with the EKG stress test, thallium stress imaging was superior in sensitivity (80% vs 68%), specificity (84% vs 49%), accuracy (81% vs 62%), positive predictive value, (92% vs 75%), and negative predictive value (65% vs 45%) in this group, with 71% prevalence of angiographically significant coronary artery disease.