title: Contrast echo and perfusion stress (2D/3D): which role in clinical practice?
abstract: In this review we will clarify some key technical aspects of myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) but we will mostly address its potential clinical application during stress-echocardiography in today's cardiology practice, according to the literature and to the author's view. MCE is a bedside technique, it is cheap and has a very high diagnostic accuracy and safety. Nonetheless MCE use remains confined to the few echolabs which pioneered and developed the technique: Why is that? We here suggest a number of potential explanations for this research/clinical practice "mismatch", and how to overcome it, putting MCE in its proper cardinal role among diagnostic methods in cardiology.
authors: Cardiology Department, Parma University Hospital, Parma, Italy.
authors: N
authors: N
authors: Gaibazzi
mesh_terms: D003287:Contrast Media; D003326:Coronary Circulation; D025401:Echocardiography, Stress / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D045423:Microbubbles
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media