Strees test

Hi, doctor, thanks for your time.
How good a diagnostic tool is the Thalium Stress test?
In conjunction with a cardiologist's clinial evaluation is the the thalium test fairly accurate at detecting heart disease?
Thanks

[Cleveland Clinic]

Inky,

In answer to your second question, 'in conjuction with the cardiologist clinical evaluation is the the thalium test fairly accurate at detecting heart disease?'

The answer is yes and more important then the answer to your first question.

The answer to the first question illustrates why stress testing must be done in conjunction with a clinical evaluation, because the accuracy of a test varies with disease prevalence in a population. Testing is of greatest value in intermediate risk patients (ie, those with a pretest probability between 20 and 80 percent).  For patients with a lower pretest probabiltiy the odds of a false positive test increases, while for patients with a higher pretest probability the odds of a false negative test increases.

So the clinical evaluation is very important for the correct ordering and interpretation of the test.

hope this helps