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Author Spotlight: Advancements in Intracardiac Echocardiography for Atrial Anatomy Assessment
Published on: June 30, 2023
The growing role of echocardiography in interventional cardiology: The present and the future
A P Patrianakos1, A A Zacharaki1, E I Skalidis1
1Heraklion University Hospital, Cardiology Department, Crete, Greece.
Insights
Echocardiography is crucial for guiding complex structural heart interventions, offering superior imaging over traditional methods. This review highlights its role, limitations, and future in percutaneous procedures.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Imaging
- Interventional Cardiology
- Echocardiography
Background:
- Structural heart disease interventions demand advanced imaging for patient management.
- Fluoroscopy and angiography are traditional but limited guidance tools.
- Echocardiography offers superior visualization for percutaneous cardiovascular procedures.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review current echocardiographic techniques in non-coronary percutaneous interventions.
- To emphasize echocardiography's essential role and limitations in these procedures.
- To discuss future perspectives for echocardiography in interventional cardiology.
Main Methods:
- Review of common and advanced echocardiographic techniques.
- Analysis of echocardiography's application in non-coronary percutaneous interventions.
- Evaluation of imaging strengths, weaknesses, and future potential.
Main Results:
- Echocardiography overcomes limitations of conventional imaging for percutaneous procedures.
- It is vital for pre-procedural, intra-procedural, and post-procedural evaluation.
- Current techniques demonstrate its indispensable role in complex interventions.
Conclusions:
- Echocardiography is the ideal imaging modality for percutaneous structural interventions.
- Understanding its limitations is key to optimizing its use.
- Future advancements will further enhance its role in cardiovascular interventions.
Abstract:
As structural heart disease interventions continue to evolve to a sophisticated level, accurate and reliable imaging is required for pre-procedural selection of cases, intra-procedural guidance, post-procedural evaluation, and long-term follow-up of patients. Traditionally, cardiovascular procedures in the catheterization laboratory are guided by fluoroscopy and angiography. Advances in echocardiography can overcome most limitations of conventional imaging modalities and provide successful completion of each step of any catheter-based treatment. Echocardiography's unique characteristics rendered it the ideal technique for percutaneous catheter-based procedures. The purpose of this review is to demonstrate the use of the most common and up-to-date echocardiographic techniques in recent non-coronary percutaneous interventional procedures, underlining its inevitable and growing role, as well as illustrating areas of weakness and limitations, and to provide future perspectives.
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