Myocardial viability assessed by dobutamine stress echocardiography predicts reduced mortality early after acute myocardial infarction: determining the risk of events after myocardial infarction (DREAM) study

OBJECTIVE: To establish further the role of dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) in prognostication of outcome early after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) METHODS: Consecutive patients presenting with AMI were screened for inclusion into the study. 212 stable consenting patients underwent DSE a mean (SD) of 4.8 (1.5) days after AMI. Patients were then followed up for 803 (297) days. RESULTS: The mean (SD) resting systolic wall thickening index (SWTI) was 1.6 (0.4), 44% patients had evidence of viability at low dose, and 38% had evidence of ischaemia. During the follow up period 27 (13%) patients died and 16 (8%) had a non-fatal AMI. Independent predictors of both mortality and combined mortality and non-fatal AMI were age (hazard ratio (HR) 1.04/year, p = 0.01, and HR 1.03/year, p = 0.04, respectively) and SWTI at low dose (HR 3.6, p < 0.01, and HR 2.5, p = 0.02, respectively). Low dose DSE provided incremental information over clinical and resting left ventricular function data for predicting death and non-fatal AMI. For patients who were not revascularised SWTI at peak dose dobutamine was the only independent predictor of mortality. CONCLUSION: DSE is a powerful predictor of outcome in stable survivors of AMI. The presence of myocardial viability has a positive impact on survival.