Latest Echocardiography Stories

Pacific Coast Imaging (PCI) and Pacific Coast Cardiology (PCC) of Newport Beach are pleased to announce that Farzan Rajput, M.D., has joined Pacific Coast Cardiology as a non-invasive cardiologist specializing in advanced cardiac imaging. Dr. Rajput is the first formally trained cardiologist specializing in cardiac CT and MRI in Orange County--and one of only a few cardiovascular imagers in the U.S. with this specialty training. According to the American Heart Association,...

By Megan Rauscher NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A group of cardiologists has launched a campaign to encourage people at risk for heart disease to learn their ejection fraction, or "EF" -- a measure of the heart's blood-pumping power -- to reduce their risk of sudden cardiac death. Each year, 450,000 Americans die as a result of sudden cardiac death, which occurs when a person's heart abruptly stops functioning. It often occurs in apparently healthy persons free of symptoms of heart...

ST. LOUIS "“ New research from Saint Louis University School of Medicine may give doctors a way to predict life-threatening heart problems in women. The team studied 421 diabetic women between 49 and 75 who underwent a certain type of stress test for suspected coronary disease. Investigators concluded that the test, known as dobutamine stress echocardiography, provided valuable information that could help doctors predict future fatal heart problems. "Our research is extremely important...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques can provide real-time measurements of volume in a fetal heart, and may better enable physicians to plan care for infants with heart defects, according to a new study. By producing three-dimensional measurements, functional MRIs may represent an advance over the current technology, fetal echocardiography."With echocardiography, the heart looks like a shadow. It looks more like a heart with real-time MRI, with excellent soft tissue...

Contrast-enhanced MRI is better than SPECT in detecting heart damage in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease that can lead to sudden death in young patients.SPECT nuclear medicine studies are currently the most common way to look for myocardial damage in these patients; however; a new study, published in the August issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology, found that MRI is a more comprehensive examination than SPECT. "MRI was better able to detect small areas of heart...

Accurately measures extent of damage in dogsHealthDayNews -- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can help doctors accurately measure the size and amount of heart muscle damaged by a heart attack, at least in animals, a new study finds.If the technique is borne out in further studies, the use of MRI could help standardize how doctors gauge the severity of a heart attack and the patient's chances for recovery. It could also help them decide the dosing of stem cell therapy, now under study to...