Comparison of transesophageal echocardiography versus computed tomography for detection of left atrial appendage filling defect (thrombus).

Patients with atrial fibrillation, who are referred for radiofrequency pulmonary vein antral isolation, frequently undergo transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) to detect and/or exclude left atrial or left atrial appendage (LAA) thrombus and cardiac computed tomographic angiography (CCTA) to define and/or evaluate left atrial and pulmonary venous anatomy. Previous studies have reported CCTA to have high sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV) for detecting thrombus in the LAA. Previous studies determining an optimal LAA/ascending aorta (AA) Hounsfield unit (HU) density ratio for detection of LAA thrombus have been small, with limited numbers of thrombi.

Isovolumic cardiac contraction on high-temporal-resolution cine MR images: study in heart failure patients and healthy volunteers.

Purpose: To prospectively implement high-temporal-resolution cine magnetic resonance (MR) imaging protocol to compare cardiac preejection contraction (PEC) and prefilling relaxation (PFR) times between heart failure (HF) patients and healthy control subjects and to assess accuracy of PEC times to stratify HF patients, with ejection fraction (EF) and New York Heart Association (NYHA) symptom class as reference standards.

Materials And Methods: Following institutional review board approval of this HIPAA-compliant study and written informed consent, 18 healthy volunteers (10 women, eight men; mean age, 43 years +/- 14 [standard deviation]) and 18 HF patients (five women, 13 men; mean age, 49.8 years +/- 3) were imaged (breath-hold true fast imaging with steady-state precession, with temporal resolution of 5.