Update on myocardial contrast echocardiography: a surgeon's perspective.
The ability to evaluate myocardial perfusion and microvascular structural integrity can help surgeons predict the necessity for surgical intervention, the sequence of intraoperative interventions, the risk of perioperative infarction, the likelihood of successful surgical recovery, and the degree of long-term clinical benefit. The ability to directly assess perfusion intraoperatively may allow surgeons to reliably evaluate a patient's myocardial perfusion at any time during the operative procedure. As this article will discuss, surgeons may use myocardial contrast echocardiography intraoperatively to evaluate myocardial function and integrity, to determine the order of graft placement, to determine the success of bypass graft patency, and to help predict those patients who will experience successful cardiac function after recovering from surgery.
Spotnitz
W D
WD
Department of Surgery, University of Virginia, Charlottesville 22906-0005, USA.
Welker
R L
RL
D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans