Immediate Stress Echocardiography for Low-Risk Chest Pain Patients in the Emergency Department: A Prospective Observational Cohort Study.

Background: Evaluation and disposition of low-risk chest pain (CP) patients in the emergency department (ED) is time consuming and expensive. Low-risk CP often results in hospital admission to rule out myocardial infarction, which leads to additional costs and delays.

Objective: Our aim was to assess whether an immediate exercise stress echocardiogram (IESE) in the ED will allow safe, efficient, and cost-effective evaluation and discharge of patients with low-risk CP.

Discrepancies between direct catheter and echocardiography-based values in aortic stenosis.

Objectives: The goal of this article is to examine the correlation of catheter (cath) based and echocardiographic assessment of aortic stenosis (AS) in a community-based academic hospital setting, particularly in the degree that decision to refer for surgery is altered.

Background: Current guidelines discourage AS evaluation by invasive pressure measurement if echocardiography (echo) is adequate, but several studies show sizable differences between echo and cardiac catheterization lab (CCL) measurements. We examine this correlation using high quality CCL techniques.

The Value of Quality Improvement Process in the Detection and Correction of Common Errors in Echocardiographic Hemodynamic Parameters in a Busy Echocardiography Laboratory.

Background: Accurate assessment of cardiac structures, ventricular function, and hemodynamics is essential for any echocardiographic laboratory. Quality improvement (QI) processes described by the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) and the Intersocietal Commission (IAC) should be instrumental in reaching this goal.

Methods: All patients undergoing transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE) followed by cardiac catheterization within 24 hours at Christiana Care Health System in 2011 and 2012 were identified, with 126 and 133 cases, respectively.

Clopidogrel use throughout pregnancy in a patient with a drug-eluting coronary stent.

Background: Little information regarding the potential implications of drug-eluting stents and clopidogrel on pregnancy exists.

Case: We report a case of a 27-year-old woman who received a drug-eluting coronary stent for an acute myocardial infarction and was started on clopidogrel as treatment. She was on clopidogrel when she conceived and delivered a child by cesarean.