ABSTRACT
Patients submitted to valve replacement with mechanical or biological prosthesis, may present symptoms related either to valvular malfunction or ventricular dysfunction from other causes. Because a clinical examination is not sufficient to evaluate a prosthetic valve, several diagnostic methods have been proposed to assess the functional status of a prosthetic valve. This review provides an overview of echocardiographic and Doppler techniques useful in evaluation of prosthetic heart valves. Compared to native valves, echocardiographic evaluation of prosthetic valves is certainly more complex, both for the examination and the interpretation. Echocardiography also allows discriminating between intra- and/or peri-prosthetic regurgitation, present in the majority of mechanical valves. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) requires different angles of the probe with unconventional views. Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is the method of choice in presence of technical difficulties. Three-dimensional (3D)-TEE seems to be superior to 2D-TEE, especially in the assessment of paravalvular leak regurgitation (PVL) that it provides improved localization and analysis of the PVL size and shape.
ABSTRACT
Few studies are available on left ventricular diastolic function in beta-thalassemia major, and these have conflicting results. Our aim in this study was to analyze myocardial systolic and diastolic functions in patients with beta-thalassemia major using, for the first time, pulsed Doppler tissue imaging (DTI), and compare data with standard Doppler echocardiography. We studied 30 young patients with beta-thalassemia major (age
Subject(s)
Echocardiography, Doppler, Pulsed , Ventricular Function, Left , beta-Thalassemia/diagnostic imaging , beta-Thalassemia/physiopathology , Adult , Blood Transfusion , Diastole/physiology , Female , Humans , Male , Systole/physiology , beta-Thalassemia/therapyABSTRACT
We report 2 patients with unusual cases of infective endocarditis. The first patient had a large, mural vegetation on left ventricle that was diagnosed with transthoracic echocardiography; and the second patient had a large, mobile vegetation in the descending prosthetic aorta with an abscess cavity around the vessel, diagnosed by transesophageal echocardiography. This report confirms the usefulness of transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography in the diagnosis and management of uncommon cases of endocarditis.
