Exercise tolerance test using duke treadmill: An observational study in a private tertiary care hospital

Abstract

Background: Ischemic heart diseases (IHDs) are one of the most prevalent diseases worldwide. Several tests are undertaken for diagnosing IHDs including electrocardiography (ECG), echocardiography, troponin test, and angiography. Exercise tolerance test (ETT) is an ideal noninvasive test for diagnosing IHDs. ETT is quite useful for risk estimation in patients diagnosed with coronary artery diseases or undergoing vascular surgery. The Duke treadmill score has a great prognostic value for ETT. Aims: The study aimed to compare the data between positive, negative, and inconclusive cases undergoing ETT with several variables that are related to cardiac scores, pathologies, and risk factors. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study that included 61 patients undergoing the test. The study was conducted at the cardiology ward, Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan. Results: The demographic characteristics showed majority of the patients to be male with 44 (72.13%) as opposed to female with 17 (27.87%) cases. The average age of all the cases was 43.48 ± 8.65 . Most of the patients undergoing the test had atypical angina with 55 (88.71%), followed by typical angina with 3 (7.14%) and no angina with 3 (7.14%) cases. Cases showed the past history of positive family reports with 20 (32.79%), followed by a history of smoking with 11 (18.03%), diabetes with 9 (14.75%), catheterization with 7 (11.48%), coronary artery bypass grafting with 5 (8.2%), and myocardial infarction with 5 (8.2%) cases. Conclusion: Duke treadmill scores of the three groups revealed that most of the cases (81.97%) fall in the intermediate-risk group (between 4 and − 10 scores) and the standard Bruce protocol showed that majority of the cases only passed Stage II (37.7%) and Stage III (37.7%) of the treadmill. Few studies have been conducted on ETT that shows a detailed analysis of this test with different associated factors. Studies like these will help in conducting greater work of this nature, analyzing important content.