title: Current Clinical Applications of Three-Dimensional Echocardiography: When the Technique Makes the Difference.
abstract: Advances in ultrasound, computer, and electronics technology have permitted three-dimensional echocardiography (3DE) to become a clinically viable imaging modality, with significant impact on patient diagnosis, management, and outcome. Thanks to the inception of a fully sampled matrix transducer for transthoracic and transesophageal probes, 3DE now offers much faster and easier data acquisition, immediate display of anatomy, and the possibility of online quantitative analysis of cardiac chambers and heart valves. The clinical use of transthoracic 3DE has been primarily focused, albeit not exclusively, on the assessment of cardiac chamber volumes and function. Transesophageal 3DE has been applied mostly for assessing heart valve anatomy and function. The advantages of using 3DE to measure cardiac chamber volumes derive from the lack of geometric assumptions about their shape and the avoidance of the apical view foreshortening, which are the main shortcomings of volume calculations from two-dimensional echocardiographic views. Moreover, 3DE offers a unique realistic en face display of heart valves, congenital defects, and surrounding structures allowing a better appreciation of the dynamic functional anatomy of cardiac abnormalities in vivo. Offline quantitation of 3DE data sets has made significant contributions to our mechanistic understanding of normal and diseased heart valves, as well as of their alterations induced by surgical or interventional procedures. As reparative cardiac surgery and transcatheter procedures become more and more popular for treating structural heart disease, transesophageal 3DE has expanded its role as the premier technique for procedure planning, intra-procedural guidance, as well as for checking device function and potential complications after the procedure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy.|Department of Internal Medicine, Samara State Medical University, Chapaevskaya Str. 89, 443099, Samara, Russian Federation.
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Surkova
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy. denisa.muraru@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Denisa
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Muraru
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Aruta
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Romeo
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy.|Department of Cardiology, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania.
authors.forename: Jurate
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bidviene
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy.|Department of Cardiology, "Filantropia" Municipal Hospital, Craiova, Romania.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cherata
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, University of Padua, Via Giustiniani 2, 35128, Padua, Italy.
authors.forename: Luigi P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Badano
mesh_terms: D019560:Echocardiography, Three-Dimensional / Q000639:trends; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D006349:Heart Valve Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic
keywords: Interventional procedures; Left ventricle; Mitral valve; Right ventricle; Three-dimensional echocardiography; Tricuspid valve