Congenital heart disease

The clinical usefulness of M-mode and two-dimensional echocardiography has been proven over the years. M-mode echocardiography allows an 'ice-pick' sampling of the heart, but in conjunction with two-dimensional echocardiography, assessments of cardiac structure and, to some extent, myocardial function can be appreciated. The limitations of these techniques include difficulty in 1) diagnosing subtle congenital heart disease and 2) estimating the severity of valvular lesions (stenosis and regurgitation). Doppler echocardiography overcomes these limitations by detecting abnormal direction, velocity, and turbulence of the blood flow (Chapter 2). This chapter will focus mainly on the two-dimensional and M-mode echocardiographic features of common congenital heart disease.