Temporal analysis of regional synthetic M-mode to identify abnormal stress echocardiographic studies

The authors investigated a method to identify regional myocardial abnormalities based on the temporal pattern of LV contraction. Nineteen stress echo studies were either normal (NML=9) or abnormal (ABN=10) by standard rest and stress images. Six radial, computer-generated synthetic M-modes (SMM) front a short axis cineloop were used to measure change in time to peak contraction during stress (/spl Delta/t) for each segment. Mean /spl Delta/t for all segments was -38/spl plusmn/15% for NML and -22/spl plusmn/27% for ABN studies (p<0.001). The presence of at least one segment with /spl Delta/t/spl ges/-15% had a sensitivity of 70% and specificity of 89% for detecting ABN studies. Temporal analysis of SMM is a promising technique for detecting resting or stress-induced LV regional abnormalities.