Echocardiography

Early echocardiography for suspected acute MI in the presence of left bundle branch block may not increase diagnostic accuracy in differentiating chest pain from other causes in hemodynamically stable patients, researchers reported.

A strategy of screening first-degree relatives of patients with bicuspid aortic valves was cost-effective and cost-saving, researchers reported at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.

In a new study, young adults born preterm demonstrated increased extracellular volume fraction in the left ventricle compared with their term-born peers, which may underlie their diastolic functional impairments.

Artificial intelligence vs. expert analysis for mortality prediction in patients with COVID-19.

For this issue, Cardiology Today spoke with Editorial Board Member Susan Cheng, MD, MPH, MMSc. She is associate professor of medicine and the Erika J. Glazer Chair in Cardiovascular Women’s Health and Population Science, program director of the Center for Research in Women’s Health and Sex Differences, director of cardiovascular population sciences and director of public health research at Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai.

In patients with COVID-19 who had an echocardiogram, analysis by artificial intelligence better predicted mortality than analysis by experts, according to the results of the WASE-COVID study.

Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography during CABG was associated with lower odds of 30-day mortality, particularly among higher-risk patients, a speaker reported.

Echocardiography at initial screening is one tool that may help identify childhood cancer survivors most at risk for future HF with reduced left ventricular ejection fraction, researchers reported.

Fetal echocardiograms for low-risk pregnancies have been reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may bring about a need for fetal tele-echocardiography, according to a review published in Progress in Pediatric Cardiology.

Cardiac CT may be the ideal imaging technique during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with transesophageal echocardiography, according to a presentation at the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography Annual Scientific Meeting.