Limited exercise testing soon after myocardial infarction. Correlation with early coronary and left ventricular angiography.

Forty-eight patients within 3 weeks of myocardial infarction underwent both limited treadmill graded exercise testing and coronary and left ventricular angiography. Nineteen (90%) of 21 patients with positive exercise tests (greater than or equal to 1 mm ST depression, angina, or both) had multivessel coronary artery disease. In the 27 patients with negative exercise test results, 15 (55%) had multivessel disease, 11 (41%) had single-vessel disease, and one (4%) had no coronary stenosis. Exercise-induced ST segment elevation occurred in 24 patients and predicted a significantly lower ejection fraction and higher angiographic abnormally contracting segment size. Patients experiencing angina during or after exercise had a significantly shorter 2-year survival (54% +/- 21%) than patients without exercise-induced angina (97% +/- 3%) (p less than 0.03). Thus limited exercise testing postinfarction is useful in evaluating the presence of multivessel coronary artery disease and left ventricular dysfunction and predicting long-term survival.