Diagnostics and therapy of ischemia in chronic stable angina pectoris. Role of echocardiography

Early detection of prognostically significant coronary artery disease (CAD) using ischemic tests, including noninvasive cardiac imaging, are fundamental approaches of optimized patient treatment guidelines to lower morbidity and mortality of these patients. Current international guidelines and the national standard of care guidelines from 2006 and 2011 as well as the third universal definition of myocardial infarction stress the increasing role of echocardiography as a favorable noninvasive imaging test. Echocardiography at rest, ergometric and pharmacologic stress echocardiography are established and readily available diagnostic tools with the potential to evaluate global and regional left ventricular function at rest and during exercise combined with information regarding regional perfusion. Especially new data on perfusion analysis allow further extension of the indications spectrum of reperfusion analysis and sensitivity increases in chest pain unit settings. The noninvasive detection of significant and prognostic stenosis burden in CAD without radiation is possible with high sensitivity and good specificity and encompasses functional cardiovascular parameters as well as extension of the ischemic area. The likelihood of future cardiac events can be assessed with high negative predictive accuracy, giving a high safety aspect in the treatment options of patients. The diagnostic potential of stress echocardiography is best in patients with intermediate and higher pretest probabilities. In patients under concurrent antiischemic medication identification of high risk patients seems feasible. Stress echocardiography has an excellent specificity and prognostic value for either indications for revascularization or survival prediction as well as survival benefits after revascularization in test positive patients. The detection of pathologic findings is not impaired by gender differences. New technical approaches include 2-D and 3-D speckle analysis of the myocardial wall and contrast-enhanced improvements in myocardial border delineation and perfusion. A new European multicenter study published in 2013 could demonstrate comparable to improved sensitivities in intermediate to severe coronary stenosis from 50% to 70% and in highly obstructive proximal stenoses compared to a reference electrocardiogram (ECG)-gated single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).