W. KUPPER Coronary artery vasoconstriction is not only the mechanism responsible for Prinzmetal's variant angina, but may also be involved in stable angina pectoris and myocardial infarction. However, the underlying patho-physiological mecha nisms and the importance of coronary vasoconstriction in these syndromes is still largely unknown. Several hypotheses have been proposed. Sympathetic nervous activity plays a key role in the regulation of coronary blood flow, but mechanical or humoral constrictive factors may be active as well. a-adrenergic tone Adrenergic nerve fibers accompany coronary...

Echocardiography has recently become one of' the most important techniques in clinical cardiology. The major advantage of this method is its noninvasive nature enabling us to apply it under a widespread variety of clinical conditions. In the late 1960s, when research and clinical application of echo cardiography were started, and during the first decade investigations were mainly focused on the morphology of the valves and the chambers of the heart. The introduction of two-dimensional echocardiography was a major breakthrough in visualizing different portions of the heart. How ever, the poor...

W. KUPPER Coronary artery vasoconstriction is not only the mechanism responsible for Prinzmetal's variant angina, but may also be involved in stable angina pectoris and myocardial infarction. However, the underlying patho-physiological mecha- nisms and the importance of coronary vasoconstriction in these syndromes is still largely unknown. Several hypotheses have been proposed. Sympathetic nervous activity plays a key role in the regulation of coronary blood flow, but mechanical or humoral constrictive factors may be active as well. a-adrenergic tone Adrenergic nerve fibers accompany coronary...

This volume contains most of the invited lectures presented at the second "Interna- tional Symposium on the Evaluation of Cardiac Dynamics by Ultrasound" which was held on May 27-28, 1982, in Hamburg. Main topics of the symposium dealt with new echocardiographic technologies such as the transesophageal technique and digital image processing of echocardio- grams, as well as with latest clinical and experimental results in the fields of contrast and Doppler echocardiography, tissue characterization and analysis of left ventricular function. We are greatly indebted to all participants who kept a...