notionpress.com Principles and Practice of Echocardiography Volume 2

Echocardiography has become one of the most significant non-invasive tools in cardiology for assessing heart function. Once limited to laboratory settings, it is now widely used in intensive care units, operating rooms, and even during bedside rounds. With technological advances, machines have become highly portable, some small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, making echocardiography more accessible to both clinicians and patients. The author’s earlier work, Clinical Echocardiography (2010), did not cover many innovations of the past decade. The new book, Principles and Practice of Echocardiography, fills this gap with updated content, including a dedicated chapter on advances in the field, such as the integration of artificial intelligence. Echocardiography is now integral to interventional procedures like artificial valve deployment and the closure of intracardiac shunts (ASD, VSD, PDA, AV fistulae). Stress echocardiography is routinely employed for evaluating coronary artery disease, valvular dysfunction, and diastolic function. While standard techniques such as M-Mode, 2-D transthoracic imaging, Doppler, and transesophageal 3D remain widely used, specialized tools—strain imaging, tissue Doppler, contrast, and harmonic imaging—serve in complex diagnostic cases. The book also covers applications in infective endocarditis, tumors, prosthetic valves, arrhythmias, cardiomyopathies, pericardial disease, and vascular ultrasonography.