Development of early myocardial perfusion in diabetic rats: the stress myocardial contrast echocardiography study

Abstract

Objective To investigate the development of early myocardial perfusion with myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) combined with dipyridamole stress echocardiography in diabetic rats. Methods The diabetes mellitus (DM) group comprised 40 male diabetic rats, induced with streptozotocin. The control group comprised 40 normal male rats, comparable body weights with the DM group. The DM group was divided into four subgroups (0 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks and 8 weeks after diabetic model established) and the control group was also divided into four subgroups matched with the DM group. Each rat was performed with conventional echocardiography, MCE at baseline and after dipyridamole stress. The reserve parameters were compared between the control group and the DM group. In addition, the differences among four subgroups in the control group and the DM group were compared, respectively. Results MCE demonstrated that the 4 weeks and 8 weeks DM subgroup had lower myocardial blood velocity reserve and myocardial blood flow reserve than the control subgroup. The myocardial blood volume reserve was reduced in the 8 weeks DM subgroup, too. Conclusions The impairment of myocardial perfusion in the DM rats are detected earlier with the MCE combined with dipyridamole stress. Key words: Echocardiography, stress; Microbubbles; Diabetes mellitus; Myocardial perfusion