Stress echocardiography.

Stress echocardiography has become an accepted noninvasive method for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease. Stress echocardiography is more sensitive than exercise electrocardiography and as sensitive and specific as radionuclide perfusion studies for detecting coronary artery disease. Pharmacologic stress echocardiography using dobutamine also has excellent diagnostic accuracy for patients who are unable to exercise. Dobutamine stress echocardiography can provide prognostic data to determine perioperative cardiac risks in patients who are undergoing vascular surgery.