Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations (PAVM) are abnormal communications between pulmonary arteries and pulmonary veins, and most commonly congenital in nature. Although rare, it is an important consideration in cyanotic patients of unknown cause. We report 3 cases with diffuse PAVM in children with different clinical manifestations and initial diagnosis was made by transthoracic contrast echoc...

background: intrapulmonary vascular abnormalities associated with liver cirrhosis may result in intrapulmonary right-to-left shunt and hypoxemia. the aim of this study was to use contrast enhanced echocardiography to detect intrapulmonary vascular abnormalities in patients with liver cirrhosis candidates for liver transplantation.   methods: one hundred and two adult patients underwent contrast...

Advances in the engineering of transpulmonary ultrasound contrast agents have greatly enriched contemporary two-dimensional (2D) echocardiography, a technique that has became the most commonly employed imaging tool in cardiology. The currently approved application of contrast echocardiography is far left ventricular opacification (LVO) and enhanced endocardial border delineation (EBD) in patien...

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...

One of the most recent revolutions of echocardiography has been the introduction of intravenous contrast agents for the optimization of echocardiographic imaging. This has proven to be of tremendous value, over and above the parallel improvement of equipment manufactured and new transducers capable of transmitting and receiving ultrasound at different frequencies. There are now clear recommenda...