ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of echocardiography for the noncardiologist, beginning with a review of some technical issues related to the physics of echocardiography followed by a summary of the constituent parts of the echocardiographic examination. Echocardiography utilizes ultrasound (US) waves in identical fashion to diagnostic sonography elsewhere in the body. In fact, an echocardiography machine can be used effectively for abdominal and general thoracic sonography, as the physical principles of echocardiography are similar to general sonography. Echocardiography has technical problems that relate to the position of the heart within the thorax. Ribs block transmission of US waves. For this reason, echocardiographic transducers are small-size sector type to permit imaging through intercostal spaces. The best resolution of a sonographic interface occurs if the sono-gram beam is perpendicular to the interface of interest. The opposite applies for Doppler measurement, where the Doppler interrogation is best accomplished with the sonogram beam oriented parallel to blood flow.
