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Gender differences in bicycle exercise stress echocardiography testing

Abstract

Background

Sex-specific differences for myocardial infarction and coronary artery disease (CAD) have been reported in several studies. The aim of our present study was to identify gender-specific differences regarding bicycle-exercise-stress-echocardiography.

Methods

We compared 87 (69.0%) male and 39 (31.0%) female patients with suspected or known stable coronary artery disease (CAD), who underwent bicycle-exercise stress-echocar-diography.

Results

False-positive exercise-test results were more prevalent in females (21.1% vs. 17.4%) and arterial hypertension was connected with false-positive results in women only. In males, higher peak-exercise heart-rate was accompanied by lower risk of false-positive stress-echo-cardiography results. Higher systolic peak blood pressure during exercise was related to a higher risk for pending coronary artery interventions in females, whereas higher peak heart-rate during exercise was accompanied by a lower risk for pending coronary artery interventions also in females.

Conclusions

Exercise-echocardiography demonstrated significant sex-specific differences. Higher efforts during stress-test lead to better test-accuracy.

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Correspondence to Karsten Keller.

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Keller, K., Stelzer, K., Geyer, M. et al. Gender differences in bicycle exercise stress echocardiography testing. Artery Res 22, 8–16 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artres.2018.02.002

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