Background: Left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy and impaired diastolic function may occur early in systemic hypertension, but longitudinal studies are missing.

Intravenous myocardial contrast echocardiography immediately prior to primary PTCA seems safe and is capable of detecting the presence of a perfusion defect and its subsequent dynamic changes, particularly in patients with a first anterior acute myocardial infarction. A significant reduction in size of the initial perfusion defect using serial myocardial contrast echocardiography predicts functional recovery after 4 weeks and these findings underscore the potential diagnostic value of intravenous myocardial contrast echocardiography.

These findings indicate that noninvasive assessment of intramyocardial coronary vasculature and measurement of coronary blood flow reserve are possible using second harmonic contrast echocardiography.

The VTIs/VTId ratio allows a moderately accurate assessment of the severity of MR.

No abstract