THE POTENTIAL OF INTRA-OPERATIVE ECHOCARDIOGRAPHIC IMAGING DURING CARDIAC RESYNCHRONIZATION TREATMENT

Abstract

Cardiac resynchronization treatment (CRT) causes improvement in symptoms and reverse cardiac remodeling in patients with drug resistant congestive heart failure. Improvement of patient selection criteria by mechanical rather than electrical dyssynchrony has been proposed to decrease the number of non responders which may be as high as 50% when echocardiographic reverse remodeling is used as an improvement criterion. Use of echocardiography thus far has been limited to evaluation pre and post CRT. No imaging modality has been tested intra-operatively during device implantation to assist with selection of optimum site of lead implantation, to detect immediate effect of CRT on cardiac function and secondary parameters and for pacemaker optimization. This article evaluates current status and potential of imaging using echocardiography during CRT.