Are results comparable with dypiridamole versus dobutamine stress echo?
INTRODUCTION: [corrected] Perioperative cardiovascular complications are an important cause of post-surgical morbility and mortality in patients undergoing major vascular surgery. Dobutamine Stress Echo is considered one of the methods of choice in the detection of coronary artery disease in this subgroup of patients. OBJECTIVES:. Our aim was to analyze if dipyridamole stress echocardiography could be used as an alternative to Dobutamine Stress Echo in the perioperative evaluation of patients in need of major vascular surgery. PATIENTS AND METHOD: The result of consecutives dypiridamole and dobutamine stress exams prior to vascular surgery were reviewed. We analyzed if those patients with a positive stress echo presented a higher number of cardiac events during and after surgery than those with negative stress echo. The negative and positive predictive values were calculated for both techniques. RESULTS: 133 stress exams were analysed: 39 with dobutamine and 94 with dipyridamole. Of th
