Future potential of echocardiography in heart failure.
Echocardiography represents a convenient, portable and noninvasive method to provide important anatomic and physiologic information to inform the management of heart failure patients. Traditional echo assessments include diagnostic, etiologic and prognostic data from ventricular size, geometry and performance. Newer echocardiographic techniques are receiving greater utilization, however, and promise to further enhance diagnostic abilities in heart failure. This article reviews traditional anatomic assessments, echo-based cardiac hemodynamics, 3D echocardiography, quantification of myocardial tissue mechanics and hand-carried echocardiography. These developments in echocardiography underlie future trends toward echo objectivity, improved imaging of patients with poor acoustic windows, miniaturization and simplicity in focused exams and the expanded application of old and new techniques.
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, 9th Floor, Gates Pavilion, 3400 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. james.kirkpatrick@uphs.upenn.edu
James N
JN
Kirkpatrick
Martin G
MG
Keane