State-of-the-Art Paper
Echocardiography in Heart Failure: Applications, Utility, and New Horizons

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Echocardiography is well qualified to meet the growing need for noninvasive imaging in the expanding heart failure (HF) population. The recently-released American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association guidelines for the diagnosis and management of HF labeled echocardiography “the single most useful diagnostic test in the evaluation of patients with HF…,” because of its ability to accurately and noninvasively provide measures of ventricular function and assess causes of structural heart disease. It can also detect and define the hemodynamic and morphologic changes in HF over time and might be equivalent to invasive measures in guiding therapy. In this article we will discuss: 1) the clinical uses of echocardiography in HF and their prognostic value; 2) the use of echocardiography to guide treatment in HF patients; and 3) promising future techniques for echocardiographic-based imaging in HF. In addition, we will highlight some of the limitations of echocardiography.

Abbreviations and Acronyms

CRT
cardiac resynchronization therapy
EF
ejection fraction
HF
heart failure
ICD
implantable cardioverter-defibrillator
LV
left ventricle/ventricular
LVEDP
left ventricular end-diastolic pressure
LVOT
left ventricular outflow tract
TDI
tissue Doppler imaging
SF
systolic fraction of pulmonary venous forward flow
VAD
ventricular assist device
Vp
flow propagation slope of early diastolic left ventricular filling

Cited by (0)

Alan Pearlman, MD, FACC, acted as the Guest Editor for this article.

1

Dr. Vannan has received honoraria and research support from Siemens.

2

Dr. Narula has served on the speakers’ bureau for GlaxoSmithKline and received honoraria from General Electric, Toshiba, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

3

Dr. Lang has served on the speakers’ bureau for Philips and received an equipment grant from Philips.