Assessment of Temporal Heterogeneity and Regional Motion to Identify Wall Motion Abnormalities Using Treadmill Exercise Stress Three-Dimensional Echocardiography

Abstract

Background: Exercise 3-dimensional echocardiography (3DE) may avoid the problem of poorly matched pre- and post-exercise 2-dimensional echocardiograms (2DE), and contraction front mapping (CFM) may be used to quantify the temporal homogeneity of contraction. We compared 3DE with 2DE for identification of angiographically significant disease. Methods: Conventional 2DE and 3DE at rest and peak stress were performed in 110 patients (78 men, aged 60 ± 11 years) who underwent angiography within 6 months. Offline assessment of CFM was performed qualitatively (delayed regional relaxation in a coronary territory) and quantitatively (difference in regional and global contraction delays from rest to p..