Tissue Doppler echocardiography: a new method of evaluating perfusion-dependent myocardial function during PTCA

The increasing demand for insight into the relationship between coronary perfusion and myocardial function stimulated the development of tissue Doppler echocardiography. This new technique was applied simultaneously with PTCA of a subtotal LAD lesion (single vessel disease, no collaterals) in a 68-year-old patient suffering from unstable angina pectoris. Prior to the conventional signs of ischaemia a decrease in myocardial tissue velocities and a loss of color-coded heart cycle intervals was observed. A myocardial velocity gradient calculated from the higher subendocardial and lower subepicardial velocity decreased from 3.3 to 1.3. This decrease was prevented by an active autohaemoperfusion device which supplied blood distally to an insufflated balloon (60 ml/min). Thus, contractility and viability might be maintained by preserving myocardial velocity gradients.