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Ricardo Petraco is a Specialist Registrar in Cardiology and Clinical Research Fellow at the International Centre for Circulatory Health
Narrowing of the coronary arteries (coronary artery disease) can lead to chest pain, heart attacks and death. Currently, most available scan techniques used to diagnose this condition rely on subjective interpretation of images, such as with stress echocardiography.
Ricardo is studying whether uncoordinated heart contraction during dobutamine stress can be used as a quantitative tool to diagnose myocardial ischaemia and coronary artery disease.
The finding of an objective and quantitative marker of ischaemia applied to a non-invasive test would lead to significant improvements in the way we assess and grade coronary disease.
The picture shows an example of delayed and uncoordinated heart contraction during dobutmine stress in a patient with a narrowed coronary artery.
‘The results of this study are expected to have immediate application to clinical practice and will help cardiologists to diagnose and grade coronary disease more reliably.’
Ricardo Petraco
