[Echocardiography]

Abstract

Assessment of ischemic mitral regurgitation( IMR) severity is important to stratify patients' management. Because IMR is influenced by loading condition seriously, it is difficult to evaluate severity of IMR in clinically stable condition at rest. Exercise stress echocardiography is useful tool to assess "true" severity of IMR. Recently, mitral valve plasty( undersized annuloplasty) creates a new problem, which is called "functional mitral stenosis". Exercise stress echocardiography also reveals this hemodynamics. Recent 3-dimensional (3D) echocardiography enables an intuitive understanding a valve anatomy by surgeon's view, and a more detailed quantitative evaluation. The 3D echocardiography can contribute to exact valve area calculation and can evaluate the forms of the valve ring which had difficulty in evaluation by 2D echocardiography. The treatment of structural heart disease with catheter has been introduced, and therefore the importance of the 3D echocardiography increases in this field. In this review, we describe the role of stress echocardiography on the assessment of IMR and the current status of 3D echocardiography.