Preoperative Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography and Clinical Factors for Assessment of Cardiac Risk after Noncardiac Surgery.

BACKGROUND: The role of dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) in the risk stratification of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery in the current era is unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the yield of DSE and the additive role of DSE to clinical criteria for preoperative risk stratification of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. METHODS: The study included 4,494 patients undergoing DSE ≤90 days before noncardiac surgery. The primary outcome was a composite of postoperative myocardial infarction, cardiac arrest, and all-cause mortality ≤30 days after noncardiac surgery. RESULTS: The overall 30-day postoperative cardiac event rate was 2.3%. The mortality rate was 0.9% overall and 0.7% and 1.3% after normal and abnormal results on DSE, respectively. Among clinical variables, the modified Revised Cardiac Risk Index score demonstrated the strongest association with postoperative risk (P < .001). Patients with Revised Cardiac Risk Index scores of ≥3 had an event rate of 7.5%. The event rates for patients with wall motion score index ≥1.7 at baseline, left ventricular ejection fractions <40% at peak stress, or ischemic thresholds <70% of age-predicted maximal heart rate were 7.1%, 8.6%, and 7.9%, respectively. After adjusting for clinical variables, the overall result of DSE (P < .001), baseline and peak-stress wall motion score index (P < .001 and P = .014, respectively), peak-stress left ventricular ejection fraction (P < .001), and the number of ischemic segments (P = .027) were all associated with postoperative cardiac events. Incremental multivariate analysis demonstrated that an overall abnormal result on DSE, added to clinical variables, was associated with an increased risk for postoperative cardiac events (odds ratio, 2.07; 95% CI, 1.35-3.17; P < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Baseline and peak-stress findings on preoperative DSE add to the prognostic utility of clinical variables for stratifying cardiac risk after noncardiac surgery.

Role of serial quantitative assessment of right ventricular function by strain in pulmonary arterial hypertension.

The aim of this study was to assess whether serial quantitative assessment of right ventricular (RV) function by speckle-based strain imaging is affected by pulmonary hypertension-specific therapies and whether there is a correlation between serial changes in RV strain and clinical status. RV longitudinal systolic function was assessed using speckle-tracking echocardiography in 50 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) before and after the initiation of therapy. The mean interval to follow-up was 6 ± 2 months. Subsequent survival was assessed over 4 years. Patients demonstrated a mean increase in RV systolic strain from -15 ± 5 before to -20 ± 7% (p = 0.0001) after PAH treatment. Persistence of or progression to a severe reduction in free wall systolic strain (<-12.5%) at 6 months was associated with greater disease severity (100% were in functional class III or IV vs 42%, p = 0.005), greater diuretic use (86% vs 40%, p = 0.02), higher mean pulmonary artery pressure (67 ± 20 vs 46 ± 17 mm Hg, p = 0.006), and poorer survival (4-year mortality 43% vs 23%, p = 0.002). After adjusting for age, functional class, and RV strain at baseline, patients with ≥ 5% improvement in RV free wall systolic strain had a greater than sevenfold lower mortality risk at 4 years (hazard ratio 0.13, 95% confidence interval 0.03 to 0.50, p = 0.003). In conclusion, serial echocardiographic assessment of RV longitudinal systolic function by quantitative strain imaging independently predicts clinical deterioration and mortality in patients with PAH after the institution of medical therapy.