PURPOSE We sought to determine the appropriate use of echocardiography for patients with suspected endocarditis. PATIENTS AND METHODS We constructed a decision tree and Markov model using published data to simulate the outcomes and costs of care for patients with suspected endocarditis. RESULTS Transesophageal imaging was optimal for patients who had a prior probability of endocarditis that...

We report the case of a 71-year-old woman diagnosed with recent inferior myocardial infarction complicated with right ventricular infarction and a right ventricular thrombus. Three-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography, contrast-enhanced computed tomography, and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging clearly detected a thrombus. We consider cases with a recent right ventricular infarction to r...

OBJECTIVE To assess and compare the roles of transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography in the diagnosis and management of an aortic root abscess. DESIGN To select patients with echocardiographic diagnosis of aortic valve endocarditis with and without an aortic root abscess and correlate this with a retrospective review of surgical and necropsy data. SETTING Tertiary referral centr...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . doi:10.1093/ehjci/jer168 Online publish-ahead-of-pr...

t akotsubo cardiomyopathy (tcm), also known as stress-induced cardiomyopathy, is a clinical syndrome of transient left ventricular (lv) apical wall motion abnormality with relative preservation of the basal heart segments in the absence of any significant atherosclerosis. recurrence of this condition is rare. we report a postmenopausal woman, who experienced two episodes of tcm within 4 months ...

An 88-year-old woman with a nonischemic cardiomyopathy, severe kyphoscoliosis, and an implantable cardiac defibrillator presented from her nursing home with dyspnea and hypoxemia. She had several recent hospitalizations for similar symptoms that were attributed to heart failure and pneumonia. On the day of presentation, she had severe dyspnea while eating breakfast. In the emergency department,...

OBJECTIVE To assess the diagnostic potential of transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography for the detection of traumatic cardiovascular injuries in patients suffering from severe blunt chest trauma. DESIGN Prospective study over a three year period. SETTING A regional cardiothoracic centre. PATIENTS 134 consecutive patients (94 M/40 F; mean age 38 (SD 14) years) suffering from s...

To compare the diagnostic yields of transesophageal and transthoracic echocardiography in the detection of potential cardiac sources of embolism, 63 patients (mean +/- SD age 63 +/- 15 [range 18-87] years) with transient ischemic attacks or stroke underwent both procedures. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed a potential cardiac source of embolism in 14% (nine) of the patients, all of whom ...

BACKGROUND We tested the hypothesis that blood flow velocity could be recorded in the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) during transthoracic echocardiography by use of second harmonic echo Doppler modality along with contrast enhancement (intravenous Levovist) at rest and after pharmacologically induced maximal vasodilation to assess coronary flow reserve (CFR) with a totally nonin...

AIMS To evaluate the relationships between measures of left ventricular (LV) filling dynamics at cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) imaging and indexes of LV diastolic function at transthoracic echocardiography. METHODS AND RESULTS Two hundred and forty-seven patients underwent myocardial perfusion imaging at rest and after stress with a low-dose CZT protocol and a baseline transthoracic echocardio...