Emerging technology in stress echocardiography.

Abstract

Stress echocardiography has seen substantial expansion as a clinically useful tool for evaluation of patients with chest pain syndromes, determining the physiological significance of coronary artery lesions and assessing prognosis in patients known to have coronary disease. Several newly developing technologies show promise for enhancing the accuracy and clinical applicability of the examination. These include automatic edge detection systems, intravenous contrast for enhanced endocardial definition, tissue Doppler imaging, and tissue characterization techniques. Finally, new methods of cardiovascular stress, including combinations of exercise and pharmacological agents as well as newly developed pharmacological agents, also show promise for enhancing the clinical utility of stress echocardiography.