The test is getting it wrong in 40 per cent of cases – which means that thousands of people are undergoing risky surgery every year unnecessarily.
The stationary exercise bike has been used as one of the routine tests for aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the heart valve, since 2012, but researchers have discovered only this week that it is highly inaccurate.
Researchers at the University of Leicester reckon it correctly identifies cases of aortic stenosis just 60 per cent of the time. As a result, around 40 per cent of all open heart surgery to replace the heart valve are not needed. In the UK alone, this means around £75 million is being spent on unnecessary operations every year.
People who become breathless after using the exercise bike are usually recommended to have open heart surgery to replace the heart valve, but the researchers found that nearly half the patients didn’t develop symptoms even a year later.
People who start suffering typical problems such as chest pain, breathlessness and feeling faint are usually assessed on an exercise bike.
(Source: European Heart Journal, 2017; doi: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehx001)
