title: [Echocardiographic evaluation of heart failure].
abstract: The echocardiogram is an easily accessible procedure to study patients with heart disease. It is very useful specifically to establish a diagnosis of heart failure and to distinguish this condition from other diseases with similar clinical manifestations, which require different treatment and with distinct prognosis. Once the diagnosis has been established with certainty, other parameters must be obtained, such as ejection fraction, ventricular mass, mass/volume ratio, thickness/radius ratio (h/r), dP/dT of the left ventricle, and a recording of transmitral blood flow can be obtained by means of pulsed and continuous Doppler blood flow. All these measurements not only quantify the degree of heart failure but also have a powerful prognostic implications.
authors.affiliation: Instituto Nacional de Cardiología Ignacio Chávez, INCICH, Juan Badiano No. 1, Col. Sección XVI, Tlalpan, 14080 México, D.F.
authors.forename: José Fernando
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Guadalajara Boo
mesh_terms: D006333:Heart Failure / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D014463:Ultrasonography
vernacular_title: Evaluación ecocardiográfica de la insuficiencia cardíaca.