© 2004 by BMJ Publishing Group & British Cardiac Society
EDITORIAL
Evaluation of hibernating myocardium
1 Department of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Center, The Netherlands
2 ThoraxCenter, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Jeroen J Bax
Department of Cardiology, Leiden University Medical Center, Albniusdreef 2, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands; jbax@knoware.nl
Identification of hibernating myocardium and subsequent prediction of recovery of function after revascularisation remains intriguing
Keywords: hibernating myocardium; coronary revascularisation
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Over the years, Rahimtoola popularised the term hibernation to describe the situation of chronic obstructive coronary artery disease resulting in chronic contractile dysfunction, which could be reversed after surgical revascularisation.1 Based on this observation, physicians became aware that chronic left ventricular (LV) dysfunction was not necessarily an irreversible process, and that in the presence of dysfunctional but viable myocardium, recovery of function was possible after revascularisation. In a large observational study, Rahimtoola subsequently demonstrated that this was not a rare phenomenon, but rather this situation occurred frequently in the clinical setting.2
Over time, among many other aspects of hibernation, three issues have come to the fore:
- Is resting perfusion reduced or normal in hibernating myocardium?
- Which technique is ideal to detect hibernation and predict recovery of function after revascularisation—in particular, nuclear imaging or dobutamine echocardiography?
- What is the optimal timing to assess recovery of function after revascularisation?
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