Intravenous microbubble contrast agents are frequently used during ultrasound imaging to improve endocardial border detection, enhance Doppler signals, differentiate thrombi from tumors or define vascular anatomy. Dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) with or without addition of atropine is a standard technique for evaluation of coronary artery disease. Noncontrast or contrast-enhanced DSE i...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the efficacy of microbubble contrast ultrasound in diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma and to compare its results with those of magnetic resonance and histopathology. METHODS A total of 29 patients suffering from chronic liver diseases and awaiting liver transplants at Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein were subject to magnetic resonance, microbubble contrast ultrasou...

BACKGROUND It is not known whether catheter tip temperatures with a cooled-tip ablation can be reliably extrapolated to estimate actual tissue temperatures. The relationship between catheter tip temperatures, tissue temperatures, power, and microbubble formation is not known. METHODS AND RESULTS Nine dogs underwent 111 radiofrequency energy deliveries at the pulmonary vein ostia with a cooled...

BACKGROUND Early recanalization of large cerebral vessels in ischemic stroke is associated with improved clinical outcome, however persisting hypoperfusion leads to poor clinical recovery despite large vessel recanalization. Limited experimental sonothrombolysis studies have shown that addition of microbubbles during treatment can improve microvascular patency. We aimed to determine the effect ...

Gas-filled microbubbles have the potential to become a unique intravascular MR contrast agent due to their magnetic susceptibility effect, biocompatibility and localized manipulation via ultrasound cavitation. However, in vivo demonstration of microbubble susceptibility effect is limited so far and microbubble susceptibility effect is relatively weak when compared with other intravascular MR su...

BACKGROUND Albumin microbubbles that are used for contrast echocardiography persist within the myocardial microcirculation after ischemia/reperfusion (I-R). The mechanism responsible for this phenomenon is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS Intravital microscopy of the microcirculation of exteriorized cremaster muscle was performed in 12 wild-type mice during intravenous injections of fluorescein-l...

Microbubbles, either in the form of free gas bubbles surrounded by a fluid or encapsulated bubbles used currently as contrast agents for medical echography, exhibit complex dynamics under specific acoustic excitations. Nonetheless, considering their micron size and the complexity of their interaction phenomenon with ultrasound waves, expensive and complex experiments and/or simulations are requ...

Microemboli are implicated in neurological injury; therefore, the extracorporeal circuit (ECC) should not generate microbubbles or transmit introduced air. The venous reservoir is the first component in the ECC designed to remove introduced air. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relative safety of two kinds of adult venous reservoirs--the closed soft-shell venous reservoir (SSVR ...

This study aimed to explore the effects of microbubble concentration, gene dosage, cell-microbubble mixing mode and fetal bovine serum (FBS) on gene delivery. 293T cells were transfected with Sonovue microbubbles carrying the hAng-1 gene via ultrasound irradiation. Various ultrasound exposure parameters and microbubble and DNA concentrations were investigated. In addition, FBS and the cell susp...

Ultrasound can cause microbubble destruction. We hypothesized that ultrasound induced microbubble destruction can be used to quantify myocardial blood flow. in viva experiments were performed where microbubbles were delivered as a constant infusion, and ultrasound examination was performed using different pulsing intervals from which microbubble velocity and microvascular cross-sectional area w...