Overview: diagnosis of ischemic heart disease by noninvasive techniques

Noninvasive tests have greatly improved in their ability to diagnose coronary artery disease. In addition, new testing modalities have been added to our armamentarium. However, no test is clearly superior to all others in every clinical circumstance. Moreover, none have been shown to provide sensitivities and specificities consistently above 90%. Therefore, their use for diagnostic purposes in populations with a lower prevalence of disease is only of moderate value. Conversely, for the assessment of the functional significance of coronary artery disease or prognosis in patients with ischemic heart disease, the addition of noninvasive imaging modalities to exercise testing is of high value.