Bepridil hydrochloride compared with placebo in patients with stable angina pectoris.

Bepridil is a calcium antagonist with a unique chemical composition and a long elimination half-life (42 hours). We evaluated the efficacy of bepridil 300 mg once/day in a crossover comparison with placebo in 45 patients with angina. Patients had an average of 7.

Reversal of chronic regional myocardial dysfunction (hibernating myocardium) by synchronized diastolic coronary venous retroperfusion during coronary angioplasty.

A 62 year old man with previous myocardial infarction, an occluded right coronary artery and a 90% stenosis of the left anterior descending coronary artery underwent angioplasty with the support of coronary venous retroperfusion of arterial blood during the procedure. In two of four angioplasty balloon dilations of the left anterior descending coronary artery, synchronized diastolic retroperfusion of the coronary veins with arterial blood was applied to protect the severely dysfunctioning myocardium from additional ischemia. Two-dimensional echocardiography was used to monitor and quantitate alterations in left ventricular function.

Echocardiographic criteria to distinguish reversible from irreversible myocardial ischaemia.

This treatise reviews two-dimensional echocardiographic criteria which have been developed to describe and distinguish reversible vs irreversible myocardial ischaemia. It also discusses the new pathophysiologic concepts such as 'hibernating' and 'decapitated' myocardium, and also 'reperfusion injury' and 'stunned' myocardium, complications which may supervene following reperfusion of jeopardized ischaemic myocardium. Computerized regional and global wall-motion analysis is now usually measured from enhanced endocardial edges.

Coronary artery bypass grafts: visualization with MR imaging.

To evaluate the use of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the detection of coronary artery bypass grafts (CABGs), 20 patients with grafts underwent electrocardiographic-gated MR study. The number and location of CABGs in each patient were not known at the time of study. The number of grafts seen with MR imaging was compared with the actual number of grafts determined from the operative or angiographic report.

Attenuation correction in echocardiography.

A commercial two-dimensional echo unit, modified to permit digital acquisition (2.2 MHz) of echo signals prior to time-gain-compensation (TGC), was ratiometrically calibrated. Simulating the TGC in software, we demonstrated improvements in image quality as compared to conventional video methods.