[Dobutamine stress cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging in patients with peripheral artery disease]

Patients with peripheral arterial disease often have coronary heart disease, as well. However, their assessment with classical noninvasive cardiology methods is often non-diagnostic or limited. The aim of this study was to analyze the feasibility and the risks of dobutamine stress cardiovascular MRI for cardiac evaluation of patients with peripheral arterial disease. 21 patients with peripheral artery disease (mean±SD age 64.3±7.7 years) were studied prospectively with dobutamine stress cardiovascular MRI. The protocol was completed by all of 21 patients. The target heart rate was attained in 95.2% of the studies. No serious adverse event occurred. The image quality scores (1-4) for all ventricular wall segments were high (median, interquartile range) (4 [4-4]). Five patients (23.8%) have inducible wall motion abnormality. Interobserver agreement was almost perfect for wall motion scores (κ = 0.87, p<0.0001). Dobutamine stress cardiovascular MRI is feasible with low risk for the cardiological assessment of patients with peripheral arterial disease.