Assessment of viable myocardium by low dose dobutamine stress echocardiography combined with integrated backscatter

Objective: To observe the clinical value of low dose dobutamine(Dob) stress echocardiography(LDDSE) combined with integrated backscatter for identifying viable myocardium in patients with coronary artery disease(CAD).Methods: 22 patients who were diagnosed CAD by quantitative coronary artery(QCA) and percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI) were performed further.DSE [5,10 μg/(kg·min)] were performed one week before PCI.IBS images at rest and every grade infusion of Dob 5 minutes were obtained in total apical views(Lax,2-ch,4-ch).Two-dimension echocardiography and IBS were examined after three months of PCI again.The maximum changing value of CVIB(K value) during DSE was defined as the criterion of viable myocardium,then the sensitivity and accuracy were compared between LDDSE and DSE combined with IBS.Results: The sensitivity,accuracy of LDDSE combined with IBS were significantly higher than those of LDDSE(91.1% vs 77.8%,90.4 vs 75.7%,all P0.05).Conclusion: Identifying viable myocardium by LDDSE combined with IBS has higher sensitivity,accuracy than those of single LDDSE.