What is myocardial viability assessment? Cardiology Basics
What is myocardial viability assessment? Cardiology Basics
Myocardial viability means regions of myocardium which can recover its function if the blood supply is normalized. Viable myocardium will improve after restoring blood supply while non-viable myocardium will not.
So myocardial viability assessment is important in deciding whether the person will benefit from revascularization procedures like coronary angioplasty and coronary bypass surgery.
There are two types of viable myocardium, stunned myocardium and hibernating myocardium. Stunned myocardium needs only time to recover while hibernating myocardium needs restoration of blood supply. Stunned myocardium is transient delay in recovery of contractile function after restoration of blood supply as occurs after primary angioplasty for acute ST segment elevation myocardial infarction.
In hibernating myocardium, the heart muscle has minimized its function due to chronic ischemia. The contractions of hibernating myocardium will improve either partially or completely once the blood supply is restored. This is in contrast to a scarred myocardium which will not recover function even if the blood supply is restored.
In patients with heart failure, viability assessment will tell whether it can improve by revascularization. If the heart muscle is not viable, they will require advanced treatment modalities like left ventricular assist devices or heart transplantation. Currently LVADs are run on external batteries carried outside th...
Source: Cardiophile MD - Category: Cardiology Authors: Johnson Francis Tags: General Cardiology Source Type: blogs
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