1,2 Compositional details for the agents approved for contrast echocardiography by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other regulatory bodies outside of the United States for opacification of the heart chambers are presented in Figure 1. This property has been achieved through specific compositional designs that stabilize and control the size of microbubbles. Producing opacification with an intravenous route of injection relies on microbubbles remaining intact and acoustically active after their transit from the venous to systemic circulation. The rationale for using microbubbles as ultrasound contrast agents is based on their ability to undergo volumetric oscillation, termed stable cavitation, in the pressure fluctuations in an ultrasound field. Yet penetration of the technology is still low, at around 7% of transthoracic studies, which reflects a need for better understanding of technical components, clinical applications, and workflow issues. This pattern is attributable to increased recognition outside of major academic centers that diagnostic performance of echocardiography is improved by adoption of policies for using contrast in selected patients, and that contrast material is both safe and without significant financial penalty. Over the past decade, there has been a year-by-year increase in the performance of contrast echocardiography. This mini-review will focus primarily on procedures performed with the administration of stable, commercially produced ultrasound contrast that can transit to the systemic circulation after intravenous injection with the overall goal of producing opacification of the blood pool and the microcirculation.
Contrast echocardiography refers to diagnostic ultrasound of the heart that is performed in conjunction with any acoustically active particle, including agitated saline.
0 kommentar(er)
