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Use of Echocardiography

This paper will look at the use of echocardiography in detecting congenital heart disease.

Echocardiography creates an image of the heart using ultra-high-frequency sound waves, and is a similar technique to the ultrasound commonly used to visualize the fetus during pregnancy (3). It is one of the most commonly used diagnostic tests for heart disease. Occasionally, variations of the echocardiography test are used, such as Doppler echocardiography, which employs a special microphone that allows measurement of the direction and speed of blood flow through the blood vessels and heart valves. By assessing the speed of blood flow at different locations around an obstruction, it can help to precisely locate the obstruction. It can also detect and help evaluate regurgitation through the heart valves. Exercise echocardiograms, taken while the patient is exercising, allow doctors to detect heart problems that might not be evident when the body is at rest and needs less blood (3). For patients unable to exercise, drugs can be given which mimic the effects of exercise. Echocardiography is an extremely safe test because it is noninvasive and has no side effects.

Fetal cardiac abnormalities are usually not diagnosed by routine ultrasonography, but detailed fetal echocardiography is a costly procedure and is usually performed only in high risk cases (5). However, Stumpflen, Stumpflen, Wimmer and Bernaschek found that cardiac abnormalities could be detected in a high proportion of low-risk fetuses. They offered detailed fetal echocardiography at 18-26 weeks of gestation to all women who attended an antenatal clinic. The study included 2181 women with no known risk factors, 540 with maternal risk factors of congenital heart disease, and 364 with sonographically detected abnormalities (5:854).

The study employed a two-dimensional ultrasound system with a 35 MHz transducer and Doppler and color-flow options. The scan included fo...

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Use of Echocardiography. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:11, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1693665.html