Stress testing: Problems and appropriate use in acute coronary syndromes

Abstract

In the early days of stress testing, there was a consensus that exercise was contraindicated in patients who had unstable angina and an acute myocardial infarction. Most patients were hospitalized for 2 or 3 weeks, and at some interval after the event, they exercised on a limited workload to determine just how vigorous their rehabilitation should be. In 1977, my colleagues and I surveyed 1,375 centers to determine the risk of exercise testing, which included a population of 448,396 tests.1 Few large surveys have been published since that time, but the indications for exercise testing have progressively relaxed.