ASSESSMENT OF CORONARY FLOW RESERVE BY TRANSESOPHAGEAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY IN CARDIAC TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS

This study investigated the feasibility of dipyridamole Doppler transe sophageal echocardiography to assess coronary flow reserve in 26 patie nts with orthotopic heart transplantation and compared it with positro n emission tomography. We found an 85% success rate in obtaining Doppl er flow signals in the proximal left anterior descending coronary arte ry. Our data also showed that the correlation between transesophageal echocardiography and dipyridamole N-13 ammonia positron emission tomog raphy increases when respective resting rate-pressure products are tak en into account. However, comparison between the two methods should be made with caution because coronary flow reserve derived from transeso phageal echocardiography tends to be higher than that obtained with po sitron emission tomography.