False Positive Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography Induced by Esmolol

Dobutamine stress echocardiography is one of the several noninvasive methods for detection of coronary artery disease (1). New regional wall motion abnormalities have been reported in dobutamine stress echocardiograpghy after intravenous beta blocker administration (2, 3) Thus, this method has been recommended for increasing the test sensitivity (4). The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and positive and negative predictive values of dobutamin stress echocardiography without beta blocker have been reported to be 84%, 92%, 87%, 95%, and 77%, respectively. Using beta blocker, on the other hand, these measures have been reported as 92%, 89%, 91%, 94%, and 87%, respectively (3). In theory, beta blocker induced false positive dobutamine stress echocardiography can occur (5).