Copyright © 2007, The European Society of Cardiology
Contrast in echocardiography: A review
University Hospital Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TH, UK
* Tel.: +44 121 6275765. rick.steeds{at}uhb.nhs.uk
The technology required for the successful application of contrast echocardiography has evolved rapidly over recent years and ultrasound contrast agents are becoming an integral part of the complete cardiac scan. Cardiac ultrasound has traditionally relied on the intrinsic high contrast between the weak sound scattered by red blood cells at low diagnostic frequencies relative to surrounding cardiac tissue. Contrast agents simply reverse this relationship and enhance the signal received from blood so as to derive a raft of advantages. The ability of echocardiography to provide unique non-invasive information with minimal discomfort or risk without using ionizing radiation, coupled with portability, immediate availability, and repeatability, accounts for its extensive use in most categories of cardiovascular disease. While the injection of contrast may compromise the non-invasive nature of echocardiography, portability, availability, and repeatability remain. Considerable advantage, however, arises from improved shunt detection, endocardial definition and detection of regional wall motion abnormalities at rest and following stress.
Interaction between micro-bubbles and ultrasound is an entire field by itself and the articles commissioned by the British Society of Echocardiography have been authored by leaders in the discipline. In the early days of echocardiography, B-mode ultrasound could detect the cavity of a cardiac chamber but not whether blood was flowing across a defect within the wall. Colour Doppler helped to overcome this deficiency but the introduction of contrast agents within the right heart has led to a wide-scale expansion in the clinical application. Dr. Folkert ten Cate and co-authors review the use of contrast in the diagnosis and significance of intracardiac shunts, concentrating on contemporary evidence relating to patent foramen ovale. Contrast agents have been available for almost 40 years but rapid development of the agents and specialised imaging methods for their detection have led to a much wider use in the optimisation of images. This optimisation has been used to introduce greater accuracy and reliability in a host of clinical scenarios reviewed by Dr. Harald Becher and colleagues in the second article. Finally, the newer contrast agents have made entirely new objectives possible for ultrasound which are coming to fruition in the clinical field. Dr. Roxy Senior and colleagues review the use of contrast in the detection of myocardial perfusion in acute and chronic coronary syndromes, right at the centre of interest for the clinical cardiologist.
This supplement is provided by the British Society of Echocardiography as a source of reference for the practical use of contrast agents in the echocardiography laboratory. It also provides an opportunity for publication of research abstracts presented at the Annual Meeting of the British Society of Echocardiography, to which all our European partners are welcome.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us What's this?
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||