Novel techniques in stress echocardiography: a focus on the advantages and disadvantages

ABSTRACT

Stress echocardiography (SE) is an established tool not only for the assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD), but also for the evaluation of valvular disease and cardiomyopathy. New techniques, namely contrast echocardiography for function and perfusion including assessment of coronary flow reserve, strain imaging, 3-dimensional echocardiography, Doppler-derived coronary flow reserve and multimodality echocardiography, have been incorporated into stress protocols for improving assessment of cardiac disease. In this review, the advantages and disadvantages of these novel SE techniques are examined in terms of feasibility, accuracy, reproducibility and applications.

KEYWORDS:

• Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography
• Strain
• Strain Rate
• Speckle-Tracking
• Tissue Doppler Imaging
• 3-Dimensional Echocardiography
• Stress Echocardiography
• Coronary Flow Reserve
• Multimodality Stress Echocardiography

Financial & competing interests disclosure

R. Senior has received speaker fees from Bracco, Milan, Italy. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.