A new study presented this summer at the American Society of Echocardiography's 15th Annual Scientific Sessions shows that an ultrasound technique called myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) can quickly tell emergency room physicians whether a patient's chest pain is cardiac-related. Researchers believe widespread use of MCE could lead to more effective treatment, quicker discharge times, and lower treatment costs.
In search of a better way to assess heart health, a team of researchers at the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville, Virginia, used MCE alongside standard diagnostic procedures to evaluate 898 patients who came to the emergency room with chest pain. Using MCE, researchers observed the thickness of the heart's main pumping chamber (the left ventricle) and blood flow within the heart muscle. As a result, they were able to accurately rule out cardiac causes--immediately and at bedside--as the root of symptoms in 445 patients in the sample group.
An unrelated study suggests that the noninvasive technology may help predict ischemic strokes in elderly patients by measuring the heart's left atrial (LA) volume.
Doctors at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, retrospectively studied 1,554 Olmsted County, Minn., residents age 65 or over who had previously received an echocardiogram from 1990-1998. Data show that an LA volume greater than or equal to 32 mL/mē was associated with higher risk of stroke occurrence. The researchers believe that an enlarged left atrium is linked to a greater risk of underlying problems associated with stroke. Ischemic strokes, caused by blood clots blocking vessels in the brain, account for 83 percent of the approximately 700,000 incidences of stroke each year in the United States.
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