title: Evaluation of myocardial viability with myocardial contrast echocardiography: a preliminary clinical study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) in the assessment of myocardial viability, with positron emission tomography (PET) as the golden standard. METHODS: Eleven patients with anterior wall Q wave myocardial infarction were enrolled in this study, who received successful percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) 3 to 19 months prior to the examinations by PET and MCE that were completed within 2 d. RESULTS: MCE score for the segments of necrotic myocardium, viable myocardium and normal myocardium was mostly 0, 0.5 and 1 respectively, and there was a significant difference between the grades of MCE score in identifying myocardial viability. In terms of diagnosing myocardium survival, MCE result was closely correlated with that of PET (with the correlation index rp of 0.78). CONCLUSION: Myocardial perfusion evaluation can be effectively accomplished by MCE, which might serve as a new approach to assess myocardial viability in clinical practice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, Nanfang Hospital, First Military Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China.
authors.forename: Wen-Zhu
authors.initials: WZ
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Dao-Gang
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Zha
authors.forename: Jian-Ping
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Bin
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Hu-Bing
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Zu-Han
authors.initials: ZH
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Zhong-Jiang
authors.initials: ZJ
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yi-Li
authors.initials: YL
authors.lastname: Liu