Exercise Stress Testing

Non-invasive evaluation of symptomatic patients with suspected or know coronary artery disease remains a high priority in cardiology. Often, the preferred initial non-invasive test is exercise electrocardiography (ECG) in patients who are able to exercise to an adequate workload because of its high accessibility, low cost and clinical value. It provides for a physiologic assessment of functional capacity, symptoms and hemodynamics. However, exercise ECG testing alone may not be adequate in other clinical conditions and there may be factors which confound the interpretation of test results. In these circumstances, exercise testing should be combined with an imaging modality.