Contrast ultrasound agents opacify the cardiac chambers and enhance the left ventricular border delineation.

Assessment of the cardiac function is highly dependent from a proper delineation of the endocardial border and wall motion patterns. Intracardiac trabeculations (creating obscuring echo reflections) and weak echo signals from structures parallel to the echo beam often result in an inappropriate delineation of the endocardial border resulting in an inaccurate assessment of the left ventricle.

Contrast ultrasound agents fill the complete ventricular cavity including the intratrabecular spaces and thus provide a proper delineation of the ventricular cavity similar to cardiac MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) images. Actual guidelines state that if two or more contiguous segments can not clearly be delineated a contrast agent must be used.

Proper assessment of the cardiac function is particularly important in stress echo to demonstrate inducible ischemia, where due to the risk of the stress examination a zero tolerance for inappropriate image quality should be applied. Also for assessment of the global cardiac function in patients with heart insufficiency (as basis for the decision of an AICD [Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator] implantation) or patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy (to assess cardiotoxic effects of the treatment) an unequivocal delineation of the cardiac chamber is needed.