Acute myocardial ischemia: From tennant and wiggers to contrast echocardiography

Myocardial contrast echocardiography.

MCE has evolved from a laboratory tool to a clinical procedure. It would be wrong to consider it merely another tool for imaging of myocardial perfusion. As discussed, it allows physicians to bring physiology and pathophysiology to the bedside, providing a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of abnormal findings in individual patients. MCE can provide quantitative measurements tha...

3D Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography

Myocardial contrast echocardiography in acute myocardial infarction: time to test for routine clinical use?

Contrast echocardiography in myocardial infarction

The contrast agents used in ultrasound are approved for several clinical situations. New echocardiographic techniques, such as harmonic imaging and power pulse inversion imaging, can improve the visualization of microbubbles. In this article we discuss the early development of contrast echocardiography, new technologies that help improve image acquisition and its practical role in the assessmen...

Visualization of subendocardial myocardial ischemia with myocardial contrast echocardiography in humans.

Previous studies indicate the degree of myocardial echo contrast enhancement may be related to regional myocardial perfusion. In this study, myocardial contrast echocardiography was used to characterize changes in the transmural myocardial blood flow distribution that were provoked by rapid atrial pacing in 11 patients with one-vessel coronary artery disease. Ten patients without coronary arter...