Rest contrast echocardiography unmasks hidden wall motion abnormalities in patients with chest pain. A case series and review of pertinent literature

Abstract

We present a case series of three patients that underwent myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) in the setting of recent chest pain, as paradigmatic examples of the usefulness of contrast-echocardiography with very-low mechanical index imaging in the context of rest wall motion assessment. Moreover, we analysed the pertinent literature about the use of rest MCE in the context of chest pain of unknown origin, showing its diagnostic and prognostic impact. We think that MCE could play a key role in detecting chest pain subtended by previously unknown coronary artery disease (CAD). For example, in pts without significant electrocardiogram (ECG) modifications or in whom high sensitivity troponins show only borderline increase (still below the upper limit) or have no clearly significant delta. In such cases the more sensitive evaluation of wall motion (WM) powered by MCE could add diagnostic information, above all in pts with severe CAD but apparently normal WM at standard echocardiography.

Keywords

• myocardial contrast echocardiography
• ischemic heart disease
• prognosis
• chest pain