Acute myocardial infarction associated with dobutamine stress echocardiography

Acute myocardial infarction as a complication of dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) is described in two patients during or shortly after undergoing the procedure. Both clinical events resulted in characteristic elevations in cardiac enzymes and the development of new electrocardiographic Q waves in the inferior leads. Subsequent coronary angiography was performed in both cases; one patient required two-vessel coronary artery bypass grafting to his first obtuse marginal and posterior descending arteries, and the other underwent successful angioplasty of an occluded proximal right coronary artery. Only two cases of DSE-associated myocardial infarction have been reported previously in the literature.