Article

Enhancing the Quality of Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction Assessment by Echocardiography

Register or Login to View PDF Permissions
Permissions× For commercial reprint enquiries please contact Springer Healthcare: ReprintsWarehouse@springernature.com.

For permissions and non-commercial reprint enquiries, please visit Copyright.com to start a request.

For author reprints, please email rob.barclay@radcliffe-group.com.
Average (ratings)
No ratings
Your rating
Copyright Statement:

The copyright in this work belongs to Radcliffe Medical Media. Only articles clearly marked with the CC BY-NC logo are published with the Creative Commons by Attribution Licence. The CC BY-NC option was not available for Radcliffe journals before 1 January 2019. Articles marked ‘Open Access’ but not marked ‘CC BY-NC’ are made freely accessible at the time of publication but are subject to standard copyright law regarding reproduction and distribution. Permission is required for reuse of this content.

Abstract

The assessment of left ventricular ejection fraction is a key clinical investigation guiding the diagnosis, management and prognosis of cardiology patients. Echocardiography is an inexpensive, safe, and portable method commonly used to provide this information. Improvement in the quality of assessment provided by echocardiography continues to be the subject of current clinical programs and investigations. Contrast-enhanced echocardiography is an established method to reduce both inter- and intra-observer variability in the echocardiography lab. The implementation of teaching interventions has also been shown to reduce variability in the qualitative and quantitative assessment of ejection fraction. Newer investigative methods, such as 3D imaging and speckle tracking, show promise as tools to further enhance the quality of left ventricular ejection fraction assessment in the echocardiography lab.

To view the full article in PDF format, please click on the icon above.

References

  1. Galema TW, Geleijnse ML, Yap SC, et al., Assessment of left ventricular ejection fraction after myocardial infarction using contrast echocardiography, Eur J Echocardiogr, 2008;9:250–4.
    Crossref | PubMed
  2. Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories, The Complete 2010 ICAEL Standards for Accreditation in Adult Echocardiography Testing. Available at: www.icael.org/icael/standards/ICAEL_2010_Standards%20%28Adult%20Echo%29.pdf (accessed February 1, 2012).
  3. Kusnetzky LL, Khalid A, Khumri TM, et al., Acute mortality in hospitalized patients undergoing echocardiography with and without an ultrasound contrast agent: results in 18,671 consecutive studies, J Am Coll Cardiol, 2008;51:1704–6.
    Crossref | PubMed
  4. Hoffman R, von Bardeleben S, ten Cate F, et al., The use of contrast echocardiography: a matter of clinical judgement, Eur Heart J, 2005;26:1565–6.
    Crossref | PubMed
  5. Thanigaraj S, Nease RF Jr, Schectman KB, et al., Use of contrast for image enhancement during stress echocardiography is cost-effective and reduces additional diagnostic testing, Am J Cardiol, 2001;87:1430–2.
    Crossref | PubMed
  6. Johri AM, Picard MH, Newell J, et al., Can a teaching intervention reduce interobserver variability in LVEF assessment: a quality control exercise in the echocardiography lab, JACC Cardiovasc Imaging, 2011;4:821–9.
    Crossref | PubMed
  7. Ahmad M, Xie T, McCulloch M, et al., Real-time three dimensional dobutamine stress echocardiography in assessment of ischemia: comparison with two-dimensional dobutamine stress echocardiography, J Am Coll Cardiol, 2011;37:1303–9.
    Crossref | PubMed
  8. DeJong PM, Pal R, Johri A, et al., Comparison of ejection fraction using MUGA and 3D echocardiography, Can J Card 2011; 27(5 Suppl.):S275.
    Crossref
  9. Szulik M, Pappas CJ, Jurcut R, et al., Clinical validation of a novel speckle-tracking-based ejection fraction assessment method, J Am Soc Echocardiogr, 2011;24:1092–100.
    Crossref | PubMed