Color superposition: a new modality for contrast echocardiography

To improve the estimation of endocardial borders in echocardiography, a technique has been developed to combine images from contrasted and noncontrasted echocardiograms of the same heart-phase using a color superposition mode. This method allows both experienced as well as less experienced examiners to define the endocardial borders more reproducibly and objectively. This is achieved by displaying tissue structures as gray level images while the ventricular cavity is marked selectively by the color display of the contrast material zone. Results of volume estimations of the left ventricle by different examiners using several imaging modes including color superposition display are presented.