[Symptoms of ischemic heart disease will occur when myocardial perfusion diminishes below a critical level. Coronarography will disclose the anatomic stenoses, but there is no direct correlation between the grade of stenosis and the change of myocardial perfusion. Myocardial contrast echocardiography is a new technique to analyze the myocardial perfusion. The contrast agent contains micro bubbles which have nearly the same dimensions as red blood cells. The microbubbles increase the „whiteness" of the perfused myocardium during the echocardiographic examinations. The change in „whiteness" of the myocardium correlates with myocardial perfusion. Intracoronary injections delineate the perfusion area of the coronary artery, and Thus the coronary flow reserve and the collateral flow area can be measured. The cardioplegia fluid distribution and the graft perfusion area are examined intraoperatively. Bedside myocardial perfusion studies will be possible through the transpulmonary passage of intravenously injected contrast agents. Myocardial contrast echocardiography can be applied both in the diagnosis and treatment of ischemic heart disease.]

[INTRODUCTION - The prognosis after opening the obstructed infarct-related coronary artery is influenced by several factors. In routine clinical practice revascularization is considered to be successful when the restoration of epicardial blood flow is complete. However, functional impairment in the myocardium can occur even with open epicardial arteries. There are two angiographic parameters closely related to myocardial viability: myocardial blush grade (MBG) that describes the quantity of contrast material in the myocardium, and TIMI myocardial perfusion grade (TMP) that describes its outflow dynamics. Our goal was to assess the prognostic value of these two parameters in the framework of a prospective clinical study. PATIENTS AND METHODS - We compared the two parameters based on visual estimation (MBG and TMP) with those characterizing myocardial impairment, such as ejection fraction (EF), wall motion score index (WMSI), creatine-kinase release and chest pain score in 22 patients with acute myocardial infarction and successful revascularization. Our results were obtained by Spearman's rank correlation and χ2-tests at a confidence interval of 95%. RESULTS - Close correlation with TMP was found in case of both parameters measured by echocardiography (EF: r=0.59, p=0.02; WMSI: r=-0.51, p=0.046). These results were supported by the correlation with creatinekinase release (r=-0.54, P=0.01). By the present number of patients, MBG does not show significant correlation with the measured clinical parameters. Presence of chest pain is associated neither with TMP nor with MBG. CONCLUSIONS - Assessing myocardial perfusion by visual evaluation provides useful prognostic information. The extent of chest pain does not indicate myocardial dysfunction. The clearence of the dye (used in TMP definition) is more characteristic to myocardial viability than maximal contrast density (used in MBG definition).]

Microdiscectomy (MD) is a stan­dard technique for the surgical treatment of lumbar disc herniation (LDH). Uniportal percutaneous full-endoscopic in­terlaminar lumbar discectomy (PELD) is another surgical op­tion that has become popular owing to reports of shorter hos­pitalization and earlier functional recovery. There are very few articles analyzing the total costs of these two techniques. The purpose of this study was to compare total hospital costs among microdiscectomy (MD) and uniportal percutaneous full-endoscopic interlaminar lumbar discectomy (PELD). Forty patients aged between 22-70 years who underwent PELD or MD with different anesthesia techniques were divided into four groups: (i) PELD-local anesthesia (PELD-Local) (n=10), (ii) PELD-general anesthesia (PELD-General) (n=10), (iii) MD-spinal anesthesia (MD-Spinal) (n=10), (iv) MD-general anesthesia (MD-General) (n=10). Health care costs were defined as the sum of direct costs. Data were then analyzed based on anesthetic modality to produce a direct cost evaluation. Direct costs were compared statistically between MD and PELD groups. The sum of total costs was $1,249.50 in the PELD-Local group, $1,741.50 in the PELD-General group, $2,015.60 in the MD-Spinal group, and $2,348.70 in the MD-General group. The sum of total costs was higher in the MD-Spinal and MD-General groups than in the PELD-Local and PELD-General groups. The costs of surgical operation, surgical equipment, anesthesia (anesthetist’s costs), hospital stay, anesthetic drugs and materials, laboratory wor­kup, nur­sing care, and postoperative me­dication diffe­red significantly among the two main groups (PELD-MD) (p<0.01). This study demonstrated that PELD is less costly than MD.