Echocardiography

The leading cause of death for men and women in the UK is heart disease, for example, coronary heart disease, heart attack and congestive heart failure(2). The most common heart disease is heart attack(2). The medical terminology of heart attack is myocardial infarction (MI)(1). In myocardial, the term myo means muscle; cardio refers to the heart; and the suffix ‘al’ means pertaining to, and infarction means death of tissue due to lack of blood supply(1). heart attack is a serious heart disease…

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and extracellular matrix (ECM): Blood vessels, include arteries that transport blood from the heart to the systemic circulation, and veins that transport blood back again into the heart. A remarkable change in blood vessel structure and function happened, with the emergence of a high-pressure, pulsatile circulatory system in vertebrates. Blood vessels then evolved from simple tubes for channeling blood or other body fluids from a low-pressure heart. According…

Newer imaging technology such as, CT scans, MRI, 3-dimensional echocardiography (3-D echo) and PET/CT scans have changed the game by being less invasive and less expensive. Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) is a diagnostic tool used for early detection to find small blockages in coronary arteries. CTA is so great that doctors can rule in or out significant heart disease in a matter of minutes with a 95% accuracy rate. Echocardiography is another detector involving ultrasound to evaluate the…

that slightly true. Cardiology, the study of the heart, is a broad, yet specific, field of study. One could deal with heart problems in general, such as heart palms and plaque, or one could delve deeper in to subcategories such as implants and echocardiography, tracking heartbeats through sound waves. However, before even acquiring a job, cardiologist must go through 2 years of hands on training through clinical rotations and specialty training. Only after their training and schooling is…

The Left Ventricular Assist Device Congestive heart failure is defined as a disease that develops when the heart is unable to pump enough blood through the body to sustain life. It is estimated that there are currently over five million people in the United States suffering from heart failure (Trivedi, Cheng, Singh, Williams, & Slaughter, 2014). For a patient with heart failure, the best hope of survival is a heart transplant (Dumitru, 2015). Unfortunately, heart transplants are not always…

Patients have decreased clotting and coagulation factors, decreased fibrinogen, and prolonged coagulation times. But in imaging, echocardiography has tremendous attributes and often is the only diagnostic modality utilized before surgical repair. Color flow Doppler can detect ventricular septal defects or any other septal defects, and any defects with valves can also be evaluated. Despite…

pervious normal delivery. In 29 weeks gestational age she was reported to our emergency department because of fetus bradycardia (70-80 beats/ minute) in routine abdominal sonographic study. Ultrasound revealed no evidence of fetal distress. Fetal echocardiography showed complete heart block without any structural heart damage (isolated congenital heart block). She had no symptom of any autoimmune disease but immunological tests showed positive SS-A (Ro) antibodies (anti- Ro titer: 37.5).…

In 1971 Dr. Fontan and Dr. Baudet [26] did the first total cavopulmonary connection ‘‘Fontan Procedure’’ which is the final palliative stage for single ventricle patients. Since then, multiple techniques and modifications were invented. However, the ultimate goal of all different procedures is to achieve near complete separation of pulmonary venous return from systemic venous return. As such, all systemic venous circulation will be directed to the Fontan circulation (except the coronary sinus…

2.1. The left ventricle and interventricular septum The heart has two inferior chambers, called the right and left ventricles, respectively. These chambers are the “pumps” that expel blood into the blood vessels and keeps it flowing through the body (Rizzo, 2016). The left ventricle is a cavity that has thick muscular walls that contains the papillary muscles as well as the chordae tendinae that attaches the atrio-ventricular valve leaflets to the papillary muscles (Leeson, Augustine,…

Diabetes is an important risk factor of cardiomyopathy which evolve to heart failure. A detailed evaluation of the cardiovascular function in diabetes mellitus by echocardiography is useful to demonstrate left ventricular diastolic dysfunction. The association of diabetes with hypertension, obesity and dyslipidemia derange the left ventricular diastolic function earlier. The study population comprised of 73 (60.8%) males and 47 (39.2%) females among the total of 120 patients with history of type…