Assessment of myocardial functional recovery in reperfused AMI: the clinical impact of visual and quantitative analysis in MCE.

The need far imaging methods to evaluate myocardial microcirculation in order to improve reperfusion therapy is increasingly recognized. Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) is the most widely used technique far this purpose. Most of the reports published have focused on visual analysis of MCE. However, quantitative analysis may further improve the results of MCE in this setting, as has been demonstrated in experimental models and more recently in clinical studies. Several quantitative methods have been proposed, and these will be discussed in this report.