Potential clinical applications of myocardial contrast echocardiography in evaluating myocardial perfusion in coronary artery disease.

Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) is a relatively new technique that uses microbubbles to produce myocardial opacification. Recent advances in echocardiography have resulted in improved detection of microbubbles within the myocardium allowing combined acquisition of function and perfusion data, thus making MCE suitable for bedside use. Regardless of the imaging modality chosen or the type of stress used, MCE detects changes developing in the coronary microcirculation, providing important information for the evaluation of severity of coronary artery disease and for the detection of viable myocardial tissue in acute or chronic coronary artery disease.