Echocardiographic Evaluation of Coronary Artery Disease

Abstract

Echocardiographic evaluation of patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) is a low cost, portable, and non-invasive imaging tool that is available in almost all hospitals and in many offi ce settings. Detection of a discreet impairment in regional left ventricular mechanical function by echocardiography provides real time cardiac imaging useful in the evaluation and diagnosis of acute and chronic CAD. Echocardiography helps to establish the diagnosis, location, and extent of ischemia and it identifi es mechanical complications of infarction and provides prognostic information for risk stratifi cation. Stress echocardiography, by induction of regional wall motion abnormalities with treadmill or bicycle exercise or following dobutamine pharmacologic stress, is routinely used to demonstrate the presence of CAD, to risk stratify patients, and to assess myocardial viability prior to revascularization. Newer echocardiographic parameters, such as strain rate and perfusion, have improved the accuracy in CAD detection and are complementary adjuncts in stress echocardiography.

Left Ventricular Wall Motion Estimation by Active Polynomials for Acute Myocardial Infarction Detection

“…In an echo, there are different standardized LV segmentation models, such as 16-segment, 17-segment, and 18-segment models. The American Heart Association Writing Group on Myocardial Segmentation and Registration for Cardiac Imaging recommendation is to use the 17-segment model [18] shown in Figure 1. In this study, the proposed technique has been developed and extensively tested on the 4-chamber view.…”

“…The American Heart Association Writing Group on Myocardial Segmentation and Registration for CardiacImaging recommendation for the 17-segment model[18].…”