Talk:Cardiac stress test

confusing, long Paragraphs
There are two real ways to confuse a user. One is to write a bunch of poorly connected or conveyed information. The other is to write in big, long, difficult to process junk.

This article has a few very big paragraphs. Short, one-sentence paragraphs appear childish; but very, very long paragraphs are difficult to break down. Paragraphs should be most ideally 3-6 sentences, each with a few clauses. Such a paragraph would be about the size of this one, perhaps a little shorter or a little longer; discretion with semi-colons is also important, as a single paragraph may be very long.

There are a few very, very large paragraphs in this article that need to be broken up and rewritten. This will aid in clarity. Check out Further Research especially; the contributors seem to have tried to address individual bullet points in single paragraphs, without brievarity. Try making better use of subsections.


 * You are always welcome to suggest revisions yourself, this being the user-edited encyclopedia and all, rather than just pointing these things out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.148.244.81 (talk) 14:04, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

inaccurate specificity figure given for nuclear stress test
''[I removed a very long, poorly-formatted copy-and-paste from this page posted by User:128.249.29.35 on 15:46, 30 May 2006, under this heading here. While the information was probably helpful, I assume it was a copyright violation; at any rate, it was near impossibe to read. Dyfsunctional 21:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)]''

Discussion of other screening techniques
I think there is too much of this article devoted to other screening techniques. Simply mentioning them as alternatives in a separate paragraphs and putting links may be more helpful to the reader, as there is a great quantity of information in the article already.

Also glaringly obvious: a lack of any description of protocols, expected findings, exercise tolerance measurements, and implications of any findings.

I will check references on Duke nomograms and their applicability to prognosis in populations. Duke nomograms quantify annual risk of CV mortality as contrasted with Framingham 10 year cumulative risk scores.

The reference to a person dropping dead after good performance on stress treadmill (Further Research: "However, there was also long-standing experience that some people could exercise all the way to maximum predicted heart rate, have no abnormal symptoms and completely normal stress test results, only to die of a massive heart attack within a few days to weeks." ) is anecdotal and not helpful in objective quantitation of risk or behavior modification.

Sw2727 14:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd love to see details of Bruce protocol treadmill (stages etc), treadmill score (Duke score) and nomograms. And stationary bicycle testing should be mentioned, since there are big practical problems administering treadmill tests to many people (both those in very poor condition, and those in very good condition).


 * But I think a reference to dropping dead is very apt. This article does not exist to serve any particular purpose (such as "behavior modification") -- it exists to serve all purposes, to generally inform.  Nothing makes the point that treadmill tests are not definitive better than such a vivid, memorable statement that a test may show no problems, but imminent death is still possible.-69.87.204.9 13:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Dropping dead -- further discussion
Let me submit then that dropping dead is possible (nonzero risk) after any cardiac diagnostic procedure by any measure by any statistical model. Still does not serve any point of informing anyone about exercise stress testing. Perhaps the wording is the problem -- perhaps "The risk of cardiac events leading to death and morbidity is never zero, nor is it implied by a relatively outcome on stress treadmill testing". When a layperson reads an article that says they can still "drop dead" after a procedure that is designed to assess risk, they may assume that it is inferior to ones that don't explicitly use this language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sw2727 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

My review of this article
I am a journalist/editor at Consumer Reports. I am reviewing this article according to the instructions at WP:HealthReview.

I suggest changing the article in the following ways: • Start with a clear description of the test. • Explain what the test is for. • Describe who needs the test. • Simplify the language • Assume you are writing for a patient who is deciding whether he or she needs the test, not for the doctor. • Make it clear that there are risks and benefits to this test, and explain what they are.

I think that this article could be improved by adding this statement:

This reference supports the above statement: • Hendel RC, Berman DS, Di Carli MF, Heidenreich PA, Henkin RE, Pellikka PA, Pohost GM, Williams KA. ACCF/ASNC/ACR/AHA/ASE/SCCT/SCMR/SNM 2009 appropriate use criteria for cardiac radionuclide imaging: a report of the American College of Cardiology Foundation Appropriate Use Criteria Task Force, the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, the American College of Radiology, the American Heart Association, the American Society of Echocardiography, the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance, and the Society of Nuclear Medicine. J Am Coll Cardiol 2009;53:2201–29.

• http://choosingwisely.org/?page_id=13 [NOTE: This is a link to the Choosing Wisely website, which includes recommendations from professional medical organizations regarding the appropriate use of, among other things, stress cardiac imaging.]

Thank you for your attention. Jkeehn (talk) 15:05, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Removed further reading
I removed the further reading section of this article - see here. I am not sure what the intent of this was but it seemed to be text copied from elsewhere without copying the hyperlinks which used to be embedded in the text. I say this because the links had dates of retrieval, which were not relevant in this context. None of the resources seemed to me to be well-curated or anything other than what a person could find in a search engine search, so I removed them.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   14:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Dubious hatnote: confusion with Cardiac arrest
The hatnote currently reads, "Not to be confused with Cardiac arrest." Can someone explain why this is a likely source of confusion? Or if not, is it okay simply to remove the hatnote? --SoledadKabocha (talk) 04:28, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Agree such confusion is unlikely. I will remove. BakerStMD T&#124;C 17:34, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

Likely needs to be completely redone.
This article really is not in great shape. It dances around, repeats over and over and overlaps with many similar articles - I took a run at one small section - I am not a big fan of traditional stress testing - the value in 2023 is highly questionable.

As part of a 'tick the box' process - it has marginal value - and the article does state this - it really is an old way of looking at cardiac health -

Dr. BeingObjective (talk) 23:09, 8 November 2023 (UTC)