Stress echocardiography is a useful noninvasive modality for measuring dynamic outflow gradient and contractility changes in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) or dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). In patients with HCM, stress echocardiography may determine the degree of outflow tract obstruction at rest and with activity, can detect occult systolic dysfunction in symptomatic patients with a normal resting left ventricular ejection fraction, and can also be utilized to monitor the efficacy of treatment. In individuals suffering from DCM, stress echocardiography is an important aid in the evaluation of the etiology, diagnosis, and prognosis of the disease as well as the functional status of the patient during either exercise or simulated stress conditions. Dobutamine stress echocardiography, by providing a measurement of the myocardial reserve, is a useful tool to predict the systolic recovery and clinical outcome of patients with heart failure. The stress-induced change in the wall motion score index can also be used as an accurate alternative to predict the peak oxygen consumption rate and exercise capacity of the same patient population. Finally, stress echocardiography has also been used in the identification of the predilated phase of cardiomyopathy in individuals with high clinical suspicion of the disease.
Stress echocardiography plays an important role in evaluating asymptomatic patients with significant mitral stenosis and symptomatic patients with only mild disease at rest, as it correlates the exercise-induced symptoms with changes in transmitral gradients, pulmonary pressures, and mitral valve area. In patients with mitral regurgitation (MR), exercise or dobutamine protocols assess for the change in the degree of regurgitation and the pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) in response to high flow states, and detect underlying left ventricular (LV) dysfunction prior to valvular surgery. Exercise echocardiography also helps in the prognostic assessment of patients with mitral valve prolapse as new MR, or latent LV dysfunction may be provoked to identify a group of high risk individuals with normal resting echocardiographic parameters. Finally, it evaluates the proper functioning of prosthetic mitral valves and helps on the monitoring of transmitral gradients and PAPs after mitral valve surgery.
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