In its developing years and during the esthetically unappealing polaroid era, echocardiography was employed, in parallel, with invasive studies. Its worth was being scrutinized; it had to be tested and verified. Although the technology continues to advance, with real-time imaging still to be refined, single-element M-mode echo, displayed as a strip chart recorder, should be allowed to stand on its own and to replace invasive studies in most patients with valve disease. More can be learned about valve function, and as much about ventricular function, from the echo than from catheterization and angiography.

Aortic Valve Insufficiency↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Coarctation of the aorta in adults. Clinical presentation and results of surgery.

We studied the mode of presentation and results of surgery in 45 adults with coarctation of the aorta. Coarctation was unsuspected in 23 patients, 3 of whom presented with acute aortic dissection and 4 with severe aortic valve disease. Twenty seven were hypertensive before surgery. Three patients required emergency operation and all died. There was one death and one postoperative paraplegia amongst 39 patients who underwent elective operation. Of 21 preoperatively hypertensive patients studied at least 2 years after surgery blood pressure returned to normal levels in 10. Acute aortic dissection, aortic aneurysm formation and aortic valve disease complicate the surgical treatment of adult coarctation and hypertension may persist in as many as 50% of patients. Nevertheless surgery is preferable to the poor reported results of long term medical management.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

The diagnostic applications of cardiac ultrasonics.

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Echocardiography↗