Echocardiography in pericardial diseases: new developments.

Echocardiography is one of the most important clinical tools in the diagnosis and management of various pericardial diseases, including constrictive pericarditis, effusive constrictive pericarditis, pericardial effusion, tamponade, absence of the pericardium and cysts or tumors. During recent years, remarkable progress has been made in echocardiography: cardiac tissue Doppler analysis (TDI), strain and strain rate imaging by speckle tracking imaging (STE) and three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography. The assessment of early diastolic annulus velocity and annulus reversus by TDI improves the differentiation of constriction from restrictive myocardial disease, which can be further facilitated by STE as a complementary tool.

Mitral and tricuspid annular velocities before and after pericardiectomy in patients with constrictive pericarditis.

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that mitral annulus early diastolic (e') velocity is increased in constrictive pericarditis (CP) and reduced in restrictive cardiomyopathy. However, those studies did not comprehensively evaluate mitral and tricuspid annular velocities before and after pericardiectomy.

Methods And Results: We performed comprehensive echocardiography before and after pericardiectomy in 99 patients with CP, 52 with primary (idiopathic or postpericarditis etiology) and 47 with secondary CP (due to surgery or radiation).

Acute thrombus formation as a complication of right ventricular biopsy.

Background: While using echocardiography to guide endomyocardial biopsy (EMB), the authors have identified acute intracardiac thrombus formation related to the procedure, a hitherto unreported complication. The aims of this study were to identify the procedural details and characteristics of patients who developed this complication between June 2008 and April 2009 and to describe their outcomes and management.

Methods: In total, 415 right ventricular biopsies were performed during this period.

Speckle myocardial imaging modalities for early detection of myocardial impairment in isolated left ventricular non-compaction.

Objective: To examine the hypothesis that speckle myocardial imaging (SMI) modalities, including longitudinal, radial and circumferential systolic (s) and diastolic (d) myocardial velocity imaging, displacement (D), strain rate (SR) and strain (S), as well as left ventricular (LV) rotation/torsion are sensitive for detecting early myocardial dysfunction in isolated LV non-compaction (iLVNC).

Design And Results: Twenty patients with iLVNC diagnosed by cardiac magnetic resonance (15) or echocardiography (5) were included. Patients were divided into two groups: ejection fraction (EF)>50% (n=10) and EF View Article and Find Full Text PDF