Overview

This supplement details the proceedings of the Bracco Satellite Symposium which was held on December 9 during the Euro Echo I11 meeting in Vienna, Austria. This symposium was co-chaired by Drs. Cees Visser of Austria and Navin C. Nanda of the United States. The symposium began with introductory remarks by Dr. Navin C. Nanda who mentioned that contrast echocardiography has grown rapidly in the last few years from the identification of cardiac anatomic structures and shunt lesions to delineation of left ventricular endocardium and, currently, to assessment of myocardial perfusion and viability. He also listed some recent advances in ultrasound technology that have further helped refine the methodology to assess myocardial perfusion. These included second harmonic imaging, interrupted imaging, power contrast imaging, the pulse inversion technique, and real-time myocardial perfusion imaging. Dr. Nanda then briefly showed contrast echo images of an adult patient in whom an apical perfusion defect was clearly demonstrated using power contrast imaging and a newer intravenous contrast agent, SonoVue. In this patient, the use of various imaging processing algorithms was useful in increasing the confidence level with which the apical perfusion defect could be diagnosed. In addition, time-intensity curves could be generated from various myocardial regions for comparison. As expected, a flat response was generated from the apical region (Fig. 1). The first article in the Proceedings is by Professor Gerald Maurer of Vienna, Austria, who discusses the need for myocardial contrast echocardiography. He traces the history of contrast echocardiography and cites the initial pioneering work of Gramiak, Shah, and Joyner. Contrast echocardiography played a pivotal role in the validation of cardiac anatomic struc-