Background Several echocardiographic studies demonstrated the agerelated changes in RV diastolic function. An MRI study supported these findings using SSFP sequences but to our knowledge, there is no such evaluation using PCMR images. Although blood flow PCMR imaging is less operator-dependant than echocardiography, which is strongly conditioned by the transducer orientation, postprocessing of ...

diagnosis of cardiac tamponade has been mainly based on clinical features and echocardiography. however, ct may be an initial tool for the evaluation of cardiac tamponade because cutting edge ct is increasingly being installed in the emergency room, and presentation of cardiac tamponade can be nonspecific. importantly, ct has better spatial resolution compared with echocardiography. thus, ident...

OBJECTIVES To define the use of cineventriculography, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (cMRI), and unenhanced and contrast-enhanced echocardiography for detection of left ventricular (LV) regional wall motion abnormalities (RWMA). BACKGROUND Detection of RWMA is integral to the evaluation of LV function. METHODS In 100 patients, cineventriculography and unenhanced and contrast-enhanced ec...

Percutaneous pulmonary balloon valvuloplasty (PBV) remains the treatment of choice for pulmonary stenosis (PS). This procedure is effective, safe and gives excellent results. Pulmonary artery (PA) dissection is a rare complication of PBV. This report is a case of an asymptomatic 17-year-old male with a history of PBV due to severe PS dating back to fifteen years ago. During recent echocardiogra...

BACKGROUND Contrast echocardiography is a precise tool for the non-invasive assessment of myocardial function and perfusion. Side effects of contrast echocardiography resulting from contrast-agent induced myocardial micro-lesions have been found in animals. The goal of this study is to measure markers of myocardial necrosis, inflammation and oxidative stress in humans to evaluate potential side...

Saranteas and colleagues [1] in the previous issue of Critical Care describes the use of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for detection of ventricular thrombus in postoperative patients in the critical care unit. While we agree that TTE is a fundamental diagnostic imaging tool that enhances detection of anatomic and physiologic abnormalities within the critical care complex, we would like t...

Contrast echocardiography is broadly described as a variety of techniques whereby the blood pool on cardiac ultrasound is enhanced with encapsulated gas-filled microbubbles or other acoustically active nano- or microparticles. The development of this technology has occurred primarily in response to the need improve current diagnostic applications of echocardiography such as the need to better d...

Echocardiographic contrast agents have great value in combination with stress echocardiography. Their conventional role is to enhance left ventricular borders during suboptimal imaging, and the test is widely, if not universally, applied for this purpose.1 The use of echocardiographic contrast agents unequivocally improves endocardial resolution,2,3 facilitating concordant test interpretation,4...