Diagnostic accuracy of handheld echocardiography for evaluation of aortic stenosis.
BACKGROUND
Symptomatic severe aortic stenosis is associated with increased mortality and morbidity. Early identification of these patients by echocardiography is crucial. We conducted this study to evaluate a handheld ultrasound device (HCU) in patients with suspected severe aortic stenosis (AS) in comparison to a standard echocardiography device (SE).


METHODS
A HCU (Vivid I; GE Healthcare) and a SE device (Philips iE 33) were used to evaluate 50 consecutive patients with suspected severe AS. Two consecutive echocardiographic studies were performed by two experienced and blinded examiners using HCU and SE device. AS was graded by mean transaortic pressure, aortic valve area (AVA), and indexed AVA (AVA adjusted for body surface area).


RESULTS
Mean difference for mean transaortic gradient, AVA and indexed AVA for the SE and HCU device were 1.28 mmHg (-0.70 to 3.26 mmHg), -0.02 cm(2) (-0.06 to 0.01 cm(2)), and -0.01 cm(2)/m(2) (-0.03 to 0.01 cm(2)/m(2)), respectively. Discrepancies between both devices were not associated with misinterpretation of the degree of AS.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study demonstrates that HCU can be used to evaluate patients with suspected AS. (ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY 2010;27:481-486).
Schaefer
Arnd
A
Clinic for Cardiology and Angiology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany. schaefer.arnd@mh-hannover.de
Rathmann
Anke
A
Klein
Gunnar
G
Drexler
Helmut
H
Tallone
Ezequiel M
EM
D000368:Aged; D001024:Aortic Valve Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D015150:Echocardiography, Doppler / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014159:Transducers