Abstract Background Adverse effects and inconclusive results may occur on dobutamine stress echocardiography. Objective To assess the safety and feasibility of dobutamine stress echocardiography in a large general population. Methods A total of 10,006 dobutamine stress echocardiographies were performed between July 1996 and September 2007. Dobutamine was administered in four stages (10, 20, 30, and 40 μcg·kg-1·min-1) to research myocardial ischemia starting with 5 μcg·kg-1·min-1 to analyze myocardial viability. Atropine was started according to the protocols used in the period. […]