Myocardial perfusion defects in contrast echocardiography: spatial and temporal localisation

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Medical Imaging
• Echocardiography

Background:

• Myocardial perfusion defects are critical indicators of cardiac disease.
• Accurate detection of these defects is essential for diagnosis and treatment planning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of echocardiographic contrast agents combined with digital image processing for detecting myocardial perfusion defects.
• To develop a method for visualizing and quantifying echo densities in the myocardium.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the echocardiographic contrast agent Echoson with digital image processing.
• Processed video recordings of cardiac cycles before, during, and after contrast agent administration.
• Interactively defined myocardial circumferences and analyzed all frames to create synthetic echo density images.
• Employed digital subtraction of pre-injection baseline values to enhance image clarity.

Main Results:

• Successfully visualized myocardial echo densities in a condensed format.
• Digital subtraction significantly improved the readability of perfusion data.
• Generated flow/circumferential position and flow/time diagrams to represent echo density homogeneity and defects over time and position.

Conclusions:

• Echocardiographic contrast agents and digital image processing offer a viable method for detecting myocardial perfusion defects.
• The developed technique provides detailed information on echo density distribution, aiding in the assessment of myocardial blood flow.
• The generated diagrams effectively highlight homogeneity and identify perfusion abnormalities within the myocardium.