Contrast Echocardiography: Current and Future Applications

Vascular lesions and s-thrombomodulin concentrations from auricular arteries of rabbits infused with microbubble contrast agent and exposed to pulsed ultrasound

“…Thus, the medical and biomedical engineering communities have recognized that one factor that can contribute to reducing the death rate attributable to coronary heart disease is early detection and diagnosis (Asanuma et al 2004;Bruce et al 2004;Chen et al 2004;Dawson et al 2003;Takeuchi et al 2004;Yip et al 2003;Zhuang et al 2004). To this end, microbubble ultrasound (US) echogenic contrast imaging agents (CAs) were approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in cardiology in the USA health care market (Al-Mansour et al 2000;Clark and Dittrich 2000;Cohen et al 1998;Malhotra et al 2000;Mulvagh et al 2000).…”

Crucial factors and emerging concepts in ultrasound-triggered drug delivery

“…According to our calculations (Geers et al 2011a [25], lentacker et al 2010 [20]) and the work performed by Tinkov et al [14,28] between 10 and 40 µg of DOX can be loaded in 1 ml of bubble dispersion which allows us to suggest that liters of a bubble dispersion should be infused, which is practically impossible. Note that in ultrasound imaging with diagnostic bubbles, one is allowed to inject maximal 1 ml of bubble dispersion [2,29,30] per treatment. One can expect however, that using the self-assembled microbubbles the amount of bubbles needed for efficient treatment would be reduced.…”

“…echography). An ultrasound image is formed due to the fact that ultrasound waves become reflected by tissues with a density different from the surrounding medium [2]. To enhance the contrast of the vasculature or other blood containing tissues that do not reflect ultrasound due to their compressibility, ultrasound contrast agents (UCAs) can be intravenously injected.…”

American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Clinical Competence Statement on Echocardiography

“…The ASE Task Force on Contrast Echocardiography states that "Intravenous contrast agents demonstrate substantial value in the difficultto-image patient with comorbid conditions that limit an ultrasound evaluation of the heart." 21 Future applications may include the evaluation of myocardial perfusion at rest or during exercise or pharmacologic stress.…”