Myocardial contrast echo: current status and future directions.

Contrast echocardiography has been around since the late 1960's. CE began with an M-mode observation by Joyner and a subsequent publication by Gramiak and Shah on enhanced echocardiographic imaging of saline in the aorta. MCE has come a long way from a diagnostic tool to include therapeutics in its armamentarium. It is an ingenious modality for assessment of MPI at the tissue level with special applications in vascular inflammation and drug delivery however, is limited by the technical difficulties with image acquisition and microbubble physics. Refining imaging software and newer advances in microbubble agents continue to revamp contrast echocardiography.