The influence of agent delivery mode on cardiomyocyte injury induced by myocardial contrast echocardiography in rats

Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) can induce bioeffects in rat hearts by local activation of the contrast agent gas bodies. This study was designed to examine the influence of agent delivery mode on the magnitude of cardiomyocyte injury. A total of 69 hairless rats were anesthetized and mounted vertically in a water bath. Evans blue dye was injected as vital stain for cardiomyocyte injury. Definity((R)) contrast agent was diluted in saline and injected via tail vein at 20 or 80 mu L/kg in bolus or infusion mode. In 12 rats, 0.57 mg/kg dipyridamole was given to simulate a stress test. MCE in a short axis view with 1:4 or 1:16 ECG triggering was performed at 1.5 MHz for 5 or 20 min. The peak rarefactional pressure amplitude was set to 1.1 or 2.0 MPa. Premature beats were counted from the ECG record. Evans blue fluorescent cells were counted on frozen sections from the center of the scan plane of heart samples obtained 24 h postMCE. Infusion of the contrast agent led to more cardiomyocyte injury than did bolus injection. Dipyridamole stress also increased the effect. Varying the infusion rate or trigger interval was less important than the overall dosage during scanning. Exposure at 1.1 MPa and 80 mu L/kg yielded significant cell killing relative to shams. Premature beats generally followed the same trends as cell injury, except that lower infusion rates tended to increase this effect. Contrast agent delivery mode, as well as dose and peak rarefactional pressure amplitude, has a significant influence on the bioeffects potential of NICE. (E-mail: douglm@umich.edu) (c) 2005 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology.