Does lack of myocardial perfusion on MCE immediately after successful thrombolysis predict poor recovery of left ventricular function in anterior myocardial infarction?
Myocardial contrast echocardiography reveals that angiographic reflow does not guarantee tissue-level reperfusion, and residual perfusion defects predict poor LV functional recovery.
MCE demonstrates that angiographically successful reflow cannot be used as an indicator of successful myocardial reperfusion in AMI patients. The residual contrast defect in the risk area demonstrated immediately after reflow is a predictor of poor functional recovery of the postischemic myocardium.
Ito et al. (1992) studied this question.