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Microbubble ultrasound maps hidden signs of heart disease

Cardiovascular disease claims more lives each year than do the two next-deadliest diseases combined. An ultrasound technique that tracks tiny gas-filled bubbles could pave the way towards improved early detection.
  1. Elisa E. Konofagou

    1. Elisa E. Konofagou is in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.

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Roughly every 34 seconds in the United States, someone has a coronary event — an attack brought on by a disease affecting the coronary arteries, which supply blood to the heart muscle. Around every 83 seconds, such an event results in death. One of the main reasons for this death toll is the poor performance of tools that are used to detect a narrowing of the arteries at a time when pharmacological interventions can still reverse it. If people survive a coronary event, this deficiency also makes it challenging to work out the severity of the injury and the potential future outcomes, which could be determined by mapping blood flowing through the part of the heart muscle that remains viable. Writing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Yan et al.1 report the efficacy of a real-time, quantitative method that could overcome these problems — using machinery that can be wheeled into any emergency department.

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Nature 629, 541-542 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01194-2

References

  1. Yan, J. et al. Nature Biomed. Eng. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-024-01206-6 (2024).

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  2. Konofagou, E. E. in Ultrasound Elastography for Biomedical Applications and Medicine (ed. Nenadic, I.) Ch. 14 (Wiley, 2018).

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  3. Cormier, P., Poree, J., Bourquin, C. & Provost, J. IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging 40, 3379–3388 (2021).

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  4. Demeulenaere, O. et al. J. Am. Coll. Cardiol. Img. 7, 1193–1208 (2022).

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  5. Demeulenaere, O. et al. eBioMedicine 94, 104727 (2023).

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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