SPECKLE TRACKING DOBUTAMINE STRESS ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY IN PRIMARY CORONARY ARTERIES DISEASE...

The aim of the work was to evaluate STE feasibility as DSE visualization method and its accuracy compared to coronary angiography (CAG) in the patients with moderate-tohigh coronary arteries disease (CAD) risk.

Materials and methods: We prospectively examined 140 pts (84 (60.0%) men) with suspected CAD in order to verify diagnosis and evaluate myocardial viability and coronary reserve.

Results: Mean LV EF was 54.4±15.8%. All pts had normal BP and HR during the test. There were no significant hemodynamics alterations during the test. There were no significant complications during DSE - 15 (12.9%) cases of different relatively low-grade supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmia, mainly transitory without interventions. There were 116 (82.9%) positive DSE results, of which 2 (1.72%) were false-positive. In 2 (8.3%) pts with negative DSE results CAG revealed 1-vessel insignificant (50 - 70%) lesions with developed collaterals (false-negative results). According to DSE and CAG results, 96 (82.3%) pts underwent revascularization interventions - 86 (89.6%) PCI's and (10.4%) CABG surgeries. Sensitivity and specificity of DSE with STE for primary CAD diagnosis according to "golden standard" CAG results were 98.3% and 91.7%, respectively, with identical positive and negative predictive value and very high method overall accuracy (AUC = 0.98) and OR = 627.0 (p<0.0001). Sensitivity and specificity of DSE with STE for defining indications for intervention and revascularization were 97.9% and 91.7%, respectively, with high overall accuracy (AUC = 0.95; OR = 564.0, p<0.0001). Combined quantification of ΔGLS and ΔWMSI for primary CAD diagnosis showed significantly lower sensitivity 86.2% (р=0.0002) and specificity 80.4% (р=0.0064) with significantly lower integral method accuracy (AUC 0.83, р<0.0001).

Conclusions: DSE with STE as a visualization method is a safe and optimal method for ischemia diagnosis and myocardial viability and coronary reserve evaluation in the pts with CAD suspicion. Given the lower ΔGLS and ΔWMSI accuracy compared to integral DSE with STE result evaluation, as well as frequent GLS growth in significant amount of patients with definite positive test result, authors recommend evaluating integral test result rather than strain value.