[Detection of anterior interventricular involvement after primary posterior wall infarct].

Forty-five patients (average age 53.3 +/- 9.4 years) underwent exercise stress testing coupled with exercise myocardial scintigraphy and right heart catheterisation on exercise during the 3rd week after primary posterior wall infarction.

[Non-invasive measurement of cardiac output by Doppler echography].

In this review paper the theoretical and technical bases of cardiac output measurement in the thoracic extracted from the literature and obtained by the authors themselves are summarized. The main physiological assumptions required for calculations (flat velocity profile in the aorta) and the main technical options (pulsed or continuous emission of ultrasounds, spectral or simplified Doppler signal analysis, evaluation or non-evaluation of the angle of incidence by two-dimensional imaging, echographic mode of measurement of the aortic diameter) are discussed. The need for controlled studies of each equipment and method on large populations of patients is emphasized.

[Clinical study of the action of dobutamine in acute cardiac insufficiency].

78 patients were treated with dobutamine for a severe episode of heart failure at a mean dose of 9.51 micrograms . kg-1 .

[Exercise myocardial scintigraphy for the positive and topographic diagnosis of coronary disease. Study in 115 patients without antecedents of myocardial infarction].

In a group of 53 subjects (prevalence of the disease = 91%), the sensitivity of stress myocardial scintigraphy is lower (66%); the predictive value of a negative SMS is only 28 per cent: these results can be explained by the clinical profile of the subjects included in this group (men with an average age of 50 with typical effort angina), but also by the high incidence of one vessel stenoses of the right coronary artery or the circumflex artery (19/35) which are less accessible to SMS. For the series as a whole, the combination of the two tests provided optimal results: double positivity (SMS+/stress ECG+) has a predictive value of 97 per cent; double negativity (SMS-/SE-) corresponds to 83 per cent true negatives. Furthermore, the combination of SMS+/SE+ is suggestive of more severe coronary disease (defined by the presence of a tight stenosis of the IVA or multi-vessel disease).