Clinical application and advances of contrast echocardiography in cardiovascular diseases

Echocardiography is currently the most convenient and commonly used imaging modality for screening and diagnosing cardiovascular diseases, but it has poor resolution for endocardial interface in patients with bad acoustic windows and limits the detection of fragmental wall motion abnormities. Contrast echocardiography (CE) is a cardiovascular imaging technique that combines echocardiography with contrast ultrasound. The use of contrast agents in peripheral veins improves the imaging of cardiac chambers and vascular lumen, therefore ameliorate delineation of the endocardial interface, and even myocardial perfusion. So far, CE has been used widely in clinical practice for the diagnosis of various heart diseases.