[Contrast echocardiography: from experimental validation to practice]

After a long wait, contrast echocardiography is at last becoming a reality. The experimental validation step has been passed with success and the first clinical results bring confirmation. The second generation contrast agents which are arriving on the market, and the spread of enhancement techniques such as Real-Time mode allow perfect visualisation of microbubbles within the left ventricular cavity, but equally at the level of the myocardial crown, thus targeting two direct applications in echocardiography: the first, indisputably, concerns the improvement in the detection of the endocardium in all the situations where it is insufficient, and in particular during stress echography; the second, more ambitious, confronts the study of myocardial perfusion, with a yet to be defined place in clinical practice.