Symptom-limited exercise combined with dipyridamole stress: prognostic value in assessment of known or suspected coronary artery disease by use of gated SPECT imaging.

Background: Combining vasodilator and exercise stress reduces noncardiac side effects, improves image quality, and enhances the detection of ischemia, compared with suboptimal exercise or vasodilator stress alone. However, prognostic data with combined protocols are limited.

Methods And Results: Consecutive patients (n = 2064) who underwent symptom-limited exercise and dipyridamole stress with gated single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging, without early revascularization, were studied.