Cardiac imaging for risk stratification with dobutamine-atropine stress testing in patients with chest pain. Echocardiography, perfusion scintigraphy, or both?

BACKGROUND

Pharmacological stress echocardiography and myocardial perfusion scintigraphy are used frequently for risk stratification in patients with suspected myocardial ischemia. However, their relative prognostic strength has never been explored.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Two hundred twenty consecutive patients with chest pain (mean age, 60 +/- 12 years; 124 men, 115 with previous myocardial infarction) were studied with dobutamine-atropine stress echocardiography (ECHO) and simultaneous 99mTc sestamibi single photon emission computed tomography imaging (MIBI). Ischemia was defined as deterioration in left ventricular wall motion and reversible perfusion defects, respectively. ECHO was positive for ischemia in 76 and MIBI in 91 patients (agreement, 77%; kappa = .51). During follow-up of 31 +/- 15 months, 24 patients had hard cardiac events (nonfatal myocardial infarction or cardiac death). By univariate analysis, age, history of congestive heart failure, and any abnormality or ischemia on ECHO or MIBI were associated with cardiac events. Multivariate analysis revealed that age, abnormal ECHO (odds ratio [OR], 18.9; 95% CI, 2.5 to 146.0) or MIBI (OR, 12.8; 95% CI, 1.7 to 98.3), and ischemia on ECHO (OR, 4.0; 95% CI, 1.6 to 9.9) or MIBI (OR, 3.0; 95% CI, 1.2 to 7.4) had independent predictive values. When ECHO was used as a first option, the addition of MIBI to all nonischemic ECHO studies decreased the OR from 4.0 (95% CI, 1.6 to 9.9) to 3.8 (95% CI, 1.4 to 10.2). Addition of MIBI confined to nonischemic ECHO studies in which target heart rate was not attained (nondiagnostic studies) increased the OR to a maximal 5.7 (95% CI, 2.2 to 15.0). In contrast, the addition of ECHO to nondiagnostic MIBI studies was not useful.

CONCLUSIONS

Dobutamine-atropine ECHO and MIBI provide comparable prognostic information. The addition of MIBI to ECHO may be useful in patients with nondiagnostic ECHO studies.