J. Cheirif et al., DOBUTAMINE ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY AND MYOCARDIAL CONTRAST ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY - 2 NEW TECHNIQUES FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF MYOCARDIAL VIABILITY, Texas Heart Institute journal, 22(1), 1995, pp. 33-39
As investigators have discovered that cardiac regions displaying resti
ng wall motion abnormalities are not the necessary equivalent of myoca
rdial scar (and therefore of irreversible injury) but are potentially
viable regions rendered dysfunctional by stunning or hibernation, a ne
w field of medicine has developed to identify viable myocardium that c
an improve in function after revascularization. Moreover, improvements
in myocardial preservation and perfusion during coronary artery bypas
s grafting and percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty have ena
bled patients with poor resting ejection fractions to undergo safer re
vascularization. In this review, we describe briefly the diagnostic te
chniques most commonly used in identifying dysfunctional but viable my
ocardium. We give specific attention to the assets and limitations of
these techniques and special emphasis to 2 promising new techniques: d
obutamine echocardiography and myocardial contrast echocardiography.