Early dobutamine echocardiography for the assessment of coronary stenosis after first Q-wave myocardial infarction

We assessed the accuracy of early dobutamine stress echocardiography to detect infarct-related coronary artery and multivessel disease in patients with first Q wave myocardial infarction after withdrawal of cardioactive drugs. Dobutamine–atropine echocardiography was performed in 91 consecutive patients (mean age 59±6 years) 7±4 days after myocardial infarction. Dobutamine was infused at incremental doses of 5, 10, 20, 30 to 40 μg/kg/min each one dose for 3 min. Peak heart rate was 134±17 bpm. All patients underwent coronary angiography before discharge. Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of ischemic and biphasic response to detect residual stenosis of infarct-related coronary artery were 70, 92 and 73%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of ischemic or biphasic response were similar in the vascular territories of left anterior descending (74, 86 and 75%, respectively), right (67, 100 and 70%, respectively) and circumflex coronary arteries (64, 100, and 69%, respectively). Sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of heterozonal wall motion abnormalities for multivessel coronary artery disease were 64, 82 and 76%, respectively. Dobutamine stress echocardiography is sensitive and specific in detecting residual coronary stenosis and multivessel disease in patients with first Q-wave myocardial infarction. The test is safe even without pharmacological protection.