Echocardiography in Lscbaemic Heart Disease

Echocardiography has become an established and powerful tool for diagnosing presence of CAD and defining its consequence. It can help in early detection of acute myocardial infarction (even in the absence of typical electrocardiographic evidence), evaluation of RWMA, detection of post-infarction mechanical and functional complications. Stress echocardiography is useful for evaluating the presence, location and severity of inducible myocardial ischaemia, as well as for risk stratification and prognostication.

Echocardiography for chest pain evaluation

When a patient presents to the emergency room with chest pain, early diagnosis is warranted to provide appropriate therapy to the patient. Most important is to know whether pain is ischemic or non-ischemic. Here lies the role of echocardiography, besides the use to cardiac enzymes to diagnose acute coronary syndrome. Echocardiography provides the greatest amount of incremental information when the clinical history and ECG findings are non-diagnostic.also helps in identifying non-ischaemic cause for chest pain such as pericarditis, aortic dissection, pulmonary infarction aortic stenosis or regurgitation.

What to look for in patients of IHD?

I ) Regional wall motion abnormality

2) Global LV systolic and diastolic functions

3) Assessment of complications