Myocardial Contrast Echocardiography

Comparison of myocardial contrast echocardiography with SPECT in the evaluation of coronary artery disease in asymptomatic patients with LBBB

“…Employment of noninvasive imaging has also several limitations because of the possible myocardial scintigraphic anteroseptal perfusion artifacts and echocardiographic abnormal septal motion, occurring also in patients free of left anterior descending artery stenosis [4][5][6][7][8][9]. As a result, coronary arteriography remains the Fgold standard_ procedure for CAD detection in patients with permanent LBBB.…”

“…Alternative approaches, including the use of coronary vasodilators as stress agents or the application of different interpretation criteria, have reduced but not eliminated the incidence of false positive results [5 -7]. Stress echocardiography with inotropic or coronary vasodilatatory agents (with or without use of contrast agents) has also improved specificity in the above patients [4,8,9].…”

Novel preparation techniques for controlling microbubble uniformity: a comparison

“…Their effectiveness lies in their ability to scatter ultrasound more efficiently than red blood cells, on account of their high compressibility, and to undergo nonlinear oscillations at moderate ultrasound intensities which enables their scattered signal to be clearly distinguished from that due to tissue. They thus provide an excellent means of imaging tissue perfusion, particularly for cardiovascular applications and cancer diagnosis [3,21,28,29,33,34]. There has also been increasing interest in the use of coated microbubbles in therapeutic applications including as vehicles for ultrasound mediated drug and gene delivery [6,26,27,40].…”

Postprandial Myocardial Perfusion in Healthy Subjects and in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

“…12 Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) with microbubbles may offer an approach for noninvasive assessment of myocardial microcirculation with clinical ultrasound imaging techniques. 13,14 Thus, the aim of the present study was to compare the effects of a mixed meal on myocardial perfusion, assessed by MCE, in healthy subjects and in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus without macrovascular or microvascular complications. We hypothesized that postprandial metabolic changes (hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia) may cause abnormalities in myocardial perfusion and that microvascular dysfunction may have a role in determining myocardial perfusion defects in type 2 diabetic patients.…”