We conducted a retrospective review of all pediatric cardiac transplant recipients at our institution who had undergone ESE and ANG between January 2007 and December 2010, and with testing performed < 12 months apart. ESE results were compared against ANG.
The study cohort comprised 47 cardiac transplant recipients. One patient's ESE images were inadequate for interpretation. Of the remaining 46 patients, ESE had a sensitivity of 88.9 % (95 % confidence limits [CL], 51.8 % , 99.7 % ), a specificity of 91.9 % (95 % CL, 71.8 % , 98.3 % ), and a negative predictive value of 97 % (95 % CL, 85.1 % , 99.1 % ) for the ANG-detected CAD.
This large, single-center study showed ESE was feasible and had a high specificity and excellent negative predictive value in excluding epicardial CAD in pediatric cardiac transplant recipients. Future prospective, large-scale studies are needed to confirm these findings and help identify a subset of children for whom a negative ESE could decrease the frequency of routine ANG.