Impact of Multimodality Imaging on the Diagnosis of Left Ventricular Apical Thrombus in Patients After Anterior Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Background: The presence of the left ventricle (LV) apical thrombus is one of the most critical complications of anterior myo-cardial infarction (MI). Due to the high risk of systemic embolization, the determination of LV apical thrombus (LVAT) is essen-tial. We aimed to compare the two-dimensional echocardiography (2DE), contrast-2DE and real-time three-dimensional echocardiography (RT-3DE) in the diagnosis of LVAT and determine which imaging modality is superior. Methods: The study was designed as a prospective cohort study, and 161 patients were included. Patients with low ejection fraction (< 40%) and LV apical wall motion abnormality (severe hypokinetic, akinetic or dyskinetic) were included. 2DE, con-trast-2DE, RT-3DE, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were performed on all patients within one month after anterior MI. Results: Transthoracic 2DE detected thrombi in 29 patients, contrast-2DE detected thrombi in 33 patients, RT-3DE detected thrombi in 32 patients, and MRI detected thrombi in 28 patients. While MRI is accepted as the gold standard for non-invasive imaging, the specificity of detecting thrombus with 2DE is 90%, and the sensitivity is 57%, contrast-2DE had 82% sensitivity and 92% specificity for the detection of LVAT. The specificity for detecting thrombus with RT-3DE is 93%, and the sensitivity is 85%. Accuracy was 84%, 90% and 92% with 2DE, contrast-2DE and RT-3DE, respectively. Conclusions: We found that RT-3DE was more sensitive and more specific than 2DE and contrast-2DE in the diagnosis of LVAT. The diagnostic accuracy of RT-3DE was higher than 2DE and contrast-2DE for LVAT.