Our coverage of imaging news being presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting continues this week with a report on the utility of tissue Doppler echocardiography in the follow-up of patients with chronic congestive heart failure (CHF).
Dear AuntMinnie Member,
Our coverage of imaging news being presented at the American College of Cardiology meeting continues this week with a report on the utility of tissue Doppler echocardiography in the follow-up of patients with chronic congestive heart failure (CHF).
Patients with chronic CHF often have a poor prognosis, with mortality rates of up to 20% a year if they aren’t receiving medication, according to an article in our Cardiac Imaging Digital Community by contributing writer Jerry Ingram. The ability to triage CHF patients and identify those at greatest risk could be an important tool in directing therapy, according to a research team from Germany.
The researchers explored whether tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) -- an imaging mode that quantifies myocardial wall motion rather than blood flow -- could provide such a tool. They found that some TDI markers had a strong prognostic impact on future cardiac events, more so than conventional echo parameters.
Based on their results, the group called for clinicians to add TDI to routine follow-up of chronic CHF patients, and for other researchers to pursue other imaging modes like TDI that could have a similar prognostic impact. Read all about it, and view the rest of our ACC coverage, in the Cardiac Imaging Digital Community at cardiacimaging.auntminnie.com.
The parade of meetings in March continues with the start of the University of Rochester’s PACS 2004 conference in San Antonio this week. Business editor Erik L. Ridley will be on the scene for AuntMinnie with daily reports, so be sure to check back in our PACS Digital Community, at pacs.auntminnie.com.
