False positive stress test reason?

False positive Test.: All tests have the possibility of false positives and negatives. That is part of the statistical nature of tests. A stress test is really a screening test for heart disease. The gold standard is angiography, looking at the vessels. That is why we do other tests after a positive stress test.

Body habitus: Most common cause of false positive stress test is body habitus. This commonly affects women because the heart rhythm needs to be picked up through their breast tissue.

Nature of test.: Stress tests are generally designed to be reliably negative, so we tend to lose some accuracy on the side of positive results. Positives considered "false" can be followed up by more confirmatory testing, such as coronary CT angiography or cardiac catheterization. The mistake would be to just assume that a positive result is false and not follow it up to be sure.