Concordance of contractibility disorders in echocardiography with coronary vessel involvement in cardiac catheterization in patients with acute myocardial infarction Concordancia de los trastornos de contractibilidad en el ecocardiograma con el compromiso del vaso coronado en el cateterismo cardíaco en pacientes con infarto agudo del miocardio

Abstract

Objective: to determine agreement between findings on cardiac catheterization and echocardiogram in patients diagnosed with coronary syndrome within 48 hours of admission to the emergency department (ED). Methods: a descriptive study on agreement. Patients diagnosed with unstable angina and ST-segment elevation or non-ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction (AMI), were included, obtaining data on the two tests from clinical records. The level of agreement between contractility and coronary flow obstructive findings was reported using the kappa coefficient. Results: the study included 129 patients with mean age 65.2 years (SD 12.15), of which 65.1% were women. The coronary occlusion rate on catheterization was 74.4%, and contractility alteration on echocardiogram was 69.8%. Low agreement between findings on these two tests was observed (agreement: 70.5%; kappa: 0.27, p=0.001). The main contractility alteration was hypokinesia (42.6%) and most presented obstruction of only one artery (44.2%). Conclusion: although agreement is low between echocardiogram and catheterization in this study, echocardiogram coupled with clinical examination constitutes an important diagnostic and follow-up procedure for patients with cardiovascular disease at the ED, in order to permit an early intervention minimizing the risk of myocardial damage, as well as, mortality and morbidity