Transoesophageal echocardiography in heart disease—old technologies, new tricks

Cardiac ultrasound and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy are relatively old technologies. With the introduction of new ultrasound probes and by incorporating ultrasound technology into conventional endoscopes, ‘new tricks’ in cardiac imaging were discovered. Posterior structures of the heart are now able to be imaged clearly by the ultrasound probe from the oesophagus. Consequently, better resolution of cardiac anatomy allows more accurate diagnosis of cardiac pathologies which is not possible using conventional transthoracic (TT) approach. Over a period of two years, 1200 cases of transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) were undertaken in our institution. The major indications were diseases of the aorta (10%), source of cardioembolism (28%), assessment of native and prosthetic valve function (20%), suspected endocarditis and its complication (17%), pre and post percutaneous transluminal mitral valvotomy (PTMV [13%], congenital heart disease (2%) and others (10%). The greatest impact with TOE is in the diagnosis of aortic dissection and transection, TOE is superior to conventional TT approach in detecting potential source of embolism, valvular vegetations and its complication, native and prosthetic valve dysfunction and LA thrombus prior to PTMV. Observations by TOE such as spontaneous echo contrast (SEC) in the left atrium open new challenges for further research in its role in the pathogenesis of LA thrombus and its association with cardioembolic event. Other areas of interest include; reclassification of distal aortic dissection and the use of TOE in intra-operative work.     

Toxicity of the blue-green alga (cyanobacterium) Microcystis aeruginosa in drinking water to growing pigs,as an animal model for human injury and risk assessment

Hepatotoxins from blue-green algae are increasingly recognized as a potential hazard in drinking water supplies. The clinical consequences of ingestion include acute or chronic liver injury, with the possibility of enhanced susceptibility to, and growth of, liver tumors. To establish guidelines for water safety requires the demonstration of dose-dependent effects of toxicity and experimental determination of maximum “no-adverse-effect levels.” This paper describes the use of growing pigs as a model for human injury resulting from Microcystis toxins in drinking water. Risk assessment calculations using a series of safety factors are carried out, resulting in a guideline level after incorporating an additional safety factor for tumor promotion of approximately 1.0 μg toxins/L. With the Microcystis used for this trial, that concentration corresponds to 5000 cells/mL. © 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc..     

Artifacts due to stimulus correlated motion in functional imaging of the brain

To assess the effect of stimulus correlated motion on the appearance of functional magnetic resonance images, conventional visual and motor protocols were each performed by four normal volunteers and an image co-registration technique was used to retrospectively monitor subject motion. In three studies synthetic data sets were constructed from single baseline images using the positional information obtained from the co-registration procedure. Cumulative difference images were then created from both the synthetic and functional image sets. Stimulus correlated motion was detected in all eight studies and the synthetic cumulative difference images showed striking similarities to the equivalent functional images in each case.