The Red Flags of Dobutamine Stress Echo: What Every Echocardiographer Needs to Recognise - Dr Laila Khan

The Red Flags of Dobutamine Stress Echo: What Every Echocardiographer Needs to Recognise - Dr Laila Khan

In this practical session, Dr. Khan explores the key red flags encountered during dobutamine stress echocardiography and how to recognise when a study may be becoming unsafe. The presentation reviews expected physiological responses to dobutamine and highlights concerning changes in blood pressure, cardiac rhythm, symptoms, ECG findings, and regional wall motion. Using practical case examples, Dr. Khan demonstrates how these findings can guide decisions to continue, pause, or terminate a study. The session also emphasises the importance of image quality, careful monitoring throughout recovery, and clear communication between all members of the stress echo team.

Aortic Stenosis- when the numbers don't make sense - Tony Forshaw

Discordant aortic stenosis can be challenging when the valve appears severely stenotic and the calculated valve area is small, yet the Doppler gradients remain unexpectedly low. In this session, Tony Forshaw works through a practical, stepwise approach to low-gradient aortic stenosis, beginning with excluding common measurement errors and confirming accurate Doppler assessment from multiple windows. He then explores the role of flow and stroke volume index in identifying low-flow states, before demonstrating how low-dose dobutamine stress echocardiography can help distinguish true severe aortic stenosis from pseudo-severe obstruction. Practical cases highlight how serial changes in valve area, gradient and stroke volume can help make sense of the numbers when they simply don’t seem to add up.