Exercise echocardiography and multidetector computed tomography for the evaluation of acute chest pain

Abstract

Introduction and objectives: Up to 4% of patients with acute chest pain, normal electrocardiogram, and negative troponins present major adverse cardiac events as a result of undiagnosed acute coronary syndrome. Our aim was to compare the diagnostic performance of multidetector computed tomography and exercise echocardiography in patients with a low-to-intermediate probability of coronary artery disease.

Methods: We prospectively included 69 patients with acute chest pain, normal electrocardiogram, and negative troponins who underwent coronary tomography angiography and exercise echocardiography. Patients with coronary stenosis ≥ 50% or Agatston calcium score ≥ 400 on coronary tomography angiography or positive exercise echocardiography, or with inconclusive results, were admitted to rule out acute coronary syndrome.

Results: An acute coronary syndrome was confirmed in 17 patients (24.6%). This was lower than the suspected 42% based on coronary tomography angiography (P<.05) and not significantly different than the suspected 29% based on the results of exercise echocardiography (P=.56). Exercise echocardiography was normal in up to 37% of patients with pathological findings on coronary tomography angiography. The latter technique provided a higher sensitivity (100% vs 82.3%; P=.21) but lower specificity (76.9% vs 88.4%; P=.12) than exercise echocardiography for the diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome, although without reaching statistical significance. Increasing the stenosis cutoff point to 70% increased the specificity of coronary tomography angiography to 88.4%, while maintaining high sensitivity.

Conclusions: Coronary tomography angiography offers a valid alternative to exercise echocardiography for the diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome among patients with low-to-intermediate probability of coronary artery disease. A combination of both techniques could improve the diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome.

Keywords: Angina inestable; Diagnosis; Diagnóstico; Ecocardiografía de ejercicio; Exercise echocardiography; Multidetector computed tomography; Tomografía computarizada multidetectores; Unstable angina.