Heart failure: hemodynamic assessment using echocardiography

Hemodynamics play a crucial role in diagnosing and managing heart failure (HF) as diagnostic markers and therapeutic targets. In an era of declining physical examination skills and questions about the safety of invasive monitoring, quantitative, objective data provided by echo-Doppler measurements can function as a type of "echo Swan-Ganz catheter" as an important adjustment to traditional methods of hemodynamic assessment. Echocardiographic measures of right- and left-sided filling pressures, pulmonary vascular resistance, and cardiac output are possible in many (although not all) HF patients. Recent studies suggest these measurements can have an important role in clinical pathways treating patients admitted with decompensated HF. The availability of miniaturized echocardiographic devices with full echo-Doppler capability may make repeatable, noninvasive hemodynamic assessment readily available and cost-effective for patients in many clinical settings.