Noninvasive cardiac imaging for the diagnosis of coronary artery disease in women

Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are the foremost cause of morbidity and mortality for both genders worldwide. Appropriate diagnostic tests with increased accuracy and safety provide the decisive relationship between diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, it has been known that women at risk for occurrence of CAD are less often conducted for the proper diagnostic tests compared to men. Many noninvasive diagnostic modalities (exercise/stress electrocardiogram, echocardiography, nuclear imaging, magnetic resonance imaging and coronary computerized tomography) are available for this purpose in the women. In this review, we present the current data on the role of both conventional and modern noninvasive diagnostic tests in the assessment of women with CAD suspicion