Regional wall motion abnormalities in LAD territory on echocardiography.

Regional wall motion abnormalities in LAD territory on echocardiography.

Echocardiography is one of the simplest investigations to assess the myocardial regional wall motion abnormalities in coronary artery disease. Regional wall motion abnormalities can also be assessed by nuclear imaging and cine CT (computed tomography) scan / MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). The wall motion is scored from 1 to 4 depending on whether it is normal wall motion, hypokinesia, akinesia or dyskinesia. Hypokinesia means reduced contraction, akinesia means absence of contraction and dyskinesia means bulging out in systole. In order to standardize the reporting of wall motion abnormalities, American Society of Echocardiography has brought out a 17 segment model for left ventricular wall motion abnormalities. The segments are analysed from 6 views: parasternal long axis, apical four chamber, apical two chamber and parasternal short axis view at the levels of mitral valve, papillary muscles and apex. Wall motion scores assigned to all the segments are added to get the total wall motion score.