Detection of prominent left anterior descending coronary artery stenosis for patients with stable angina using Doppler tissue echocardiography.

The midseptum has an elective left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) supply. Septal peak velocity (PkV) and myocardial velocity gradient (MVG) were studied at rest with M-mode Doppler tissue echocardiography during the cardiac cycle including the septal active relaxation (SAR) outward wall motion preceding isovolumic relaxation. In all, 33 patients had significant multivessel coronary artery disease. Group A (15 patients) had prominent LAD stenosis. Group B (18 patients) had prominent circumflex (15) or right (3) coronary artery stenoses. The goal was to detect a prominent LAD stenosis. During SAR, sensitivity to detect a prominent LAD stenosis was 86% for PkV < 20 mm/s and 80% for MVG < 1.1 s(-1); specificity was 83% for both variables. During systole, sensitivity was 86% with a 55% specificity for MVG < 2.0 s(-1), whereas sensitivity was 73% and specificity 66% for PkV < 30 mm/s. Areas under receiver operating characteristic curves were over 0.90 during SAR and only 0.70 for PkV and 0.80 for MVG during systole. In multivessel coronary artery disease, SAR variables better identified a prominent LAD stenosis than systolic variables. Moreover, SAR PkVs were informative per se, whereas systole required MVG calculation.