Alterations of myocardial ultrasonic tissue characterization by coronary angioplasty in patients with chronic stable coronary artery disease

We conducted a study to delineate the alterations in the cyclic changes of myocardial ultrasonic integrated backscatter (IBS) in patients receiving an gioplasty for chronic coronary artery disease. Ultrasonic tissue characteri zation (UTC) and dobutamine stress echocardiography were performed in 43 pa tients before and 24 h after angioplasty, as well as before the follow-up a ngiography 3 months later. For segments being normokinetic with ischemic bu rden, the blunted amplitude and increased nadir deviation of IBS cyclic mod ulation recovered soon after angioplasty. For dyssynergic segments with con tractile reserve, the angioplasty rebuilt the amplitude before the wall mot ion recovered, but corrected the nadir deviation tardily. In both circumsta nces, the coronary restenosis abolished the initial restoration. Those nonv iable segments persistently revealed large deviations and small weighted am plitudes irrelevant to coronary lesions. The progress of myocardial ischemi a, the development of wall motion dyssynergy and, then, the loss of viabili ty, show different patterns of alterations in UTC after alleviating coronar y obstructions.