**8. Commercial preparations**

The use of MBs in echocardiography was first reported in 1968 [65]. Since that time great progress has been done in preparation of MBs for human and veterinary use. The following three commercial MB agents Optison TM (GE Healthcare, WI, USA), Definity® (Lantheus Medical Imaging, MA, USA) and SonoVue® (Bracco, Milano, Italy) currently hold the license for clinical diagnostic applications (Table 1). The size of the commercial MBs in these agents is usually larger than 1 um with imaging durations being 5-10 min.


**Table 1.** Specifications of commercial and self-made MBs.
