Key result
Intra-cardiac echocardiography failed to clearly identify myocardial contrast in 17 of 19 patients undergoing alcohol septal ablation, whereas TTE was substantially better.
Why the study?
Does intra-cardiac echocardiography (ICE) improve anatomical and contrast visualisation compared to transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in patients undergoing alcohol septal ablation?
Observational (n=20)
Does intra-cardiac echocardiography (ICE) improve anatomical and contrast visualisation compared to transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in patients undergoing alcohol septal ablation?
Despite high-quality anatomical imaging, ICE is inferior to TTE for visualising myocardial contrast during alcohol septal ablation and cannot be used to guide the procedure.
ICE should not guide contrast selection in alcohol septal ablation; leaves open whether ICE adds value beyond TTE for other procedural aspects.
Alcohol septal ablation (ASA) in hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy reduces left ventricular outflow tract gradients.A third of patients do not respond; inaccurate localisation of the iatrogenic infarct can be responsible.Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) using myocardial contrast can be difficult in the laboratory environment.Intra-cardiac echocardiography (ICE) provides high-quality images.We aimed to assess ICE against TTE in ASA.The ability of ICE and TTE to assess three key domains (mitral valve (MV) anatomy and systolic anterior motion, visualisation of target septum, adjacent structures) was evaluated in 20 consecutive patients undergoing ASA.Two independent experts scored paired TTE and ICE images off line for each domain in both groups.The ability to see myocardial contrast following septal arterial injection was also assessed by the cardiologist performing ASA.In patients undergoing ASA, ICE was superior in viewing MV anatomy (PZ0.02).TTE was superior in assessing adjacent structures (PZ0.002).There was no difference in assessing target septum.Myocardial contrast: ICE did not clearly identify the area of contrast in 17/19 patients due to dense acoustic shadowing (8/19) and inadequate opacification of the myocardium (6/19).ICE only clearly localised contrast in 2/19 cases.ICE does not visualise myocardial contrast well and therefore cannot be used to guide ASA.TTE was substantially better at viewing myocardial contrast.There was no significant difference between ICE and TTE in the overall ability to comment on cardiac anatomy relevant to ASA.
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A 2014 study conducted an observational in Hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy (n=20). Intra-cardiac echocardiography (ICE) vs. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) was evaluated on Ability to assess mitral valve anatomy, target septum, adjacent structures, and myocardial contrast. Intra-cardiac echocardiography failed to clearly identify myocardial contrast in 17 of 19 patients undergoing alcohol septal ablation, whereas TTE was substantially better.
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