Po-Hsien Chu, Kunio Miyatake*, Cheng-Wen Chiang, and Yiung-Shiung Lee
The First Cardiovascular Division, Department of Internal Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Chang Gung University, Taipei, Taiwan, ROC; and *the Cardiology Division of Medicine, National Cardiovascular Center, Suita, Osaka, Japan.
| Doppler echocardiography is a very usefully diagnostic procedure for evaluating coronary artery disease. However, conventional M-mode, two-dimensional and Doppler color echocardiography are insufficient to assess myocardial anatomy and function once coronary blood flow is interrupted or reduced. They can only provide information about grossly global motion, main coronary morphology, and diastolic function. We still need to define intracoronary vascular stenosis and endocardial wall motion more clearly and quantitatively. In this decade, several new methods have been developed, such as intravascular Doppler echocardiography and tissue Doppler imaging, which are able to achieve this goal. These modalities help us to detect the pathophysiology of vascular stenosis and to identify the functioning of the myocardium in coronary artery disease, and this information can then be applied to choose the optimal treatment for myocardial ischemia. This article presents a review of certain features of the coronary arteries that are relevant to various Doppler imaging techniques. (J Intern Med Taiwan 1999;10:82-87) |