Ultrasound-Enhancing Agent Safely Enhances Left Ventricular Visualization by Transthoracic Echocardiography in Patients on Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) Support
Authors' conclusion
The use of UEA significantly improved the quality of LV biplane images by transthoracic echocardiography, transforming them from suboptimal to good in patients supported with peripherally implanted ECMO. UEA use tripled the feasibility of measuring LVEF by TTE without affecting clinical and ECMO parameters.
Study context
- Population
- Consecutive patients on peripherally implanted ECMO, tertiary cardiothoracic and ECMO centre, London, UK
- Participants
- 18 consecutive patients
- Exposure
- TTE after vs before ultrasound-enhancing agent
- Outcome
- Biplane endocardial border definition index
Methodological detailsbefore-after comparison, single-centre
- Before-after comparison
- Single-centre
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Before UEA
2.167
interval 1.812–3.042
After UEA
1.500
interval 1.417–1.792
P = 0.0004
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
| Outcome | P value |
|---|---|
| Feasibility of LVEF measurementTripled with UEA use | P = 0.0008 |
Feasibility of LV ejection fraction (LVEF) measurement
- Feasibility of LVEF tripled with UEA use, from 25% (n = 5) to 83% (n = 15)
Safety
Bubble alarm, clinical and ECMO parameters · 24 hours
- UEA did not set off the bubble alarm and did not impact clinical or ECMO parameters
Parts of this Brief are withheld: the automatic checks could not confirm them against the abstract.
Original publication
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