Clinical utility of continuous wave Doppler echocardiography: non-invasive determination of gradient, pressure and...

Echocardiography has revolutionized the practice of cardiovascular imaging. A complete one- and two-dimensional echocardiographic examination can provide non-invasive information about cardiac anatomy and function. Pulsed wave (PW) Doppler technique has permitted to appreciate normal and abnormal blood flow patterns. Abnormal blood turbulence associated with stenosis, regurgitation and cardiac shunts has been characterized. However, only with the recent advent of continuous wave (CW) Doppler technique has the noninvasive ultrasound examination been able to accurately estimate intracardiac blood flow velocities which can be used to determine gradient, pressure and flow. Now, in a complete ultrasound laboratory, one can non-invasively determine many of the cardiac functional and hemodynamic parameters which heretofore were relegated to invasive cardiac catheterization.