Exercise testing in patients with aortic and mitral valve disease: current applications.

Overview

In recent years, exercise testing has become an increasingly important means of evaluating subtle symptomatic changes in patients with aortic and mitral valve disease. Perhaps more significantly, however, when employed with other objective indicators of cardiac function, exercise testing appears to be of value in identifying patients with clinically important deterioration of myocardial function and in assessing the efficacy of various forms of therapy. As investigation of the role of exercise testing in these patients continues, it seems likely that application of exercise testing will prove of value in the rational selection of patients for available therapy.