ABSTRACT
Conventional Doppler techniques have been used for sometime, but are limited by personal skill and experience, as well as by the fact that it can sample only one specific cardiac site at a time. The introduction of color-coded Doppler flow imaging systems allows by using multiple sample volumes an immediate display of intracardiac blood flow, spatially-oriented and super-imposed in two-dimensional echocardiography images, that not only increase temporal resolution, but which integrates anatomic and functional analysis. Likewise, the objective visualization of abnormal jet lesions permits the application of continuous-wave Doppler echocardiography with a high veracity for derived pressure gradients. Color-coded Doppler echocardiography emerges as the most promising, simple and non-invasive technique for obtaining confident quantitative information in diverse cardiac pathologic conditions and research.
