Echocardiography in the coronary care unit: diagnostic and prognostic impact in comparison with clinical and other indicators

The American Journal of Cardiology
S RomanoA Dagianti

Abstract

The clinical arena in which we must consider the role of echocardiography is characterized by 2 fundamental findings: (1) most patients with chest pain and suspected acute myocardial infarction (MI) do not present diagnostic electrocardiograms; and (2) an early and correct diagnosis is necessary to match the patient with the most adequate treatment. Echocardiography may be very useful in the coronary care unit, allowing a correct diagnosis of ischemic heart disease when electrocardiography is unclear, even before the rise of cardiac enzymes is detected. It may also play a role in decision-making for thrombolytic therapy. In addition, echocardiography provides useful information for early risk stratification. In fact, although high-risk patients are well identified by simple clinical or instrumental variables (i.e., Killip classification, enzymatic data, blood-gas analysis, electrocardiogram, etc.), most patients (>60%) are identified as low risk, and several subjects classified into the low-risk groups have a poor prognosis and are not detected using a single variable. In our experience, 2-dimensional echocardiography was able to further stratify between patients of low-risk classes. Therefore, echocardiography plays an importa...Continue Reading

References

Nov 19, 1976·Science·R RobertsC W Parker
Sep 1, 1989·Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography : Official Publication of the American Society of Echocardiography·N B SchillerI Schnittger
Feb 1, 1988·The American Journal of Cardiology·C DuboisH E Kulbertus
Aug 14, 1986·The New England Journal of Medicine·M A DeWoodM L Hinnen
May 1, 1996·Journal of the American College of Cardiology·E Braunwald, C P Cannon

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Citations

Sep 21, 2001·The American Journal of Cardiology·S M NgA S Maisel

❮ Previous
Next ❯

Related Concepts

Related Feeds

Cardiovascular Diseases: Risk Factors

Cardiovascular disease is a significant health concern. Risk factors include hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia and smoking. Women who are postmenopausal are at an increased risk of heart disease. Here is the latest research for risk factors of cardiovascular disease.