Question

While performing an apical view during a microbubble contrast echo on a patient with suspected wall motion abnormalities in the mid anterolateral LV segment, you notice significant swirling of the contrast in the area of the normally functioning apex. How can you adjust the controls to reduce this artifact swirling?

A) Turn off harmonic imaging
B) Inject at a faster rate
C) Move the focal zone to the level of the apex
D) Decrease the mechanical index setting

Answer 1

To reduce swirling artifacts during a microbubble contrast echo, decrease the mechanical index setting, which will prevent the premature bursting of microbubbles.

Step-by-step explanation:

When performing an apical view during a microbubble contrast echo on a patient, to reduce the artifact swirling caused by the contrast agent in the area of the apex, you can adjust the controls in the following way: Decrease the mechanical index setting. The mechanical index (MI) is a measure of the amount of energy being used by the ultrasound machine. If it's set too high, it can cause the microbubbles to burst prematurely and create swirling artifacts. Lowering the MI can help mitigate this issue without turning off the potentially useful harmonic imaging or changing the injection rate or focal zone, which may not directly address the issue of bubble destruction.