New technologies in stress echocardiography.
Stress echo has become the preferred theater where innovative technologies are first tested. The new technologies address, in different ways, various physiological targets: more quantitative assessment of the regional wall thickening (by anatomical M-mode); operator-independent assessment of global and regional systolic function (by anatomic boundary detection and color kinesis); tissue composition and physiologic state (by tissue characterization); transmural stratification of myocardial (subendocardial) function (by tissue Doppler imaging); more quantitative evaluation of contrast-enhanced myocardial perfusion (by harmonic imaging). All new emerging techniques aim to improve display and communication among physicians by translating the description of function into numbers and/or colors. However, cardiologists have to be aware that due the pro-technology bias of modern medicine, we, as physicians, are encouraged to trust, to use (and to buy) technologies far before their clinical incremental value has been shown.
Picano
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E
Institute of Clinical Physiology, CNR, Pisa, Italy. picano@ifc.pi.cnr.it
Varga
A
A
Pratali
L
L
Rodriguez
O
O
Morelos
M
M
D004452:Echocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D005080:Exercise Test / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans