Assessment of left ventricular ejection fraction after myocardial infarction using contrast echocardiography

AIMS: Despite its relatively high intra- and inter-observer variability for left ventricular ejection fraction (LV-EF) echocardiography is clinically still the most used modality to assess LV-EF. We studied whether adding a second-generation microbubble contrast agent could decrease this variability. METHODS AND RESULTS: Forty-eight patients underwent transthoracic echocardiography in second-harmonic mode (SHI) with and without contrast within 5 days after an acute myocardial infarction. LV-EF was determined using the Simpson's biplane method. With contrast intra-observer variability decreased from 12.5 +/- 11.5% to 7.0 +/- 7.0% (P < 0.001) and inter-observer variability decreased from 16.9 +/- 9.9% to 7.0 +/- 6.2% (P < 0.001). Bland-Altman analysis confirmed these findings by demonstrating smaller 95% limits of agreement for both the intra- and inter-observer variability when contrast was used. This improvement in intra- and inter-observer variability was seen to a comparable extent in patients with moderate-to-poor and good quality SHI echocardiograms. CONCLUSION: Echo contrast significantly improves intra- and inter-observer variability for LV-EF, both in patients with moderate-to-poor and good quality SHI echocardiograms.