title: [Echocardiography of idiopathic cardiomyopathies].
abstract: Echocardiography is useful to demonstrate cardiac abnormalities seen in idiopathic cardiomyopathies. Dilated cardiomyopathy is characterized by dilated cardiac chambers and diffusely hypokinetic wall motion. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is characterized by left ventricular hypertrophy with no known cause. Restrictive cardiomyopathy has diastolic failure with preserved systolic function. Echocardiography demonstrates the normal sized ventricles and the dilated atria. Recent advances in echocardiography include second harmonic imaging and tissue Doppler echocardiography. Second harmonic imaging can produce good quality images with high S/N ratio and is useful to delineate the endocardial border clearly and to show smoke-like echo in cardiac chambers. Tissue Doppler echocardiography can measure wall motion velocity. One of the potential application of this method would be to differentiate constrictive pericarditis from restrictive cardiomyopathy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, National Cardiovascular Center.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nakatani
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Miyatake
mesh_terms: D002311:Cardiomyopathy, Dilated / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D002312:Cardiomyopathy, Hypertrophic / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D002313:Cardiomyopathy, Restrictive / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D015150:Echocardiography, Doppler; D006801:Humans