The Practice of Clinical Echocardiography

As the field of echocardiography has evolved, the role of the echocardiographer has shifted toward providing an integrated assessment of echocardiographic data in conjunction with other clinical data in each patient. THE PRACTICE OF CLINICAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY, 2ND EDITION addresses this change in focus with an emphasis on the clinical roles of health care professionals with specialized expertise in this field. Each chapter provides an advanced level of instruction, written by an expert in the field, building upon the basic material in Otto's companion volume, TEXTBOOK OF CLINICAL ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY, 2ND EDITION. It provides up-to-date, relevant information on not only the qualitative and quantitative interpretation of echocardiographic images and Doppler flow data, but also on how this information might affect clinical decision making.Offers comprehensive coverage, useful for all professionals who care for patients with heart disease.Provides detailed discussions of the impact of echocardiographic data on patient management.Emphasises optimal data acquisition, results of recent studies, quantitative approaches to data analysis, potential technical limitations, and areas of active research.Uses tables, line drawings, echocardiographic images, and Doppler tracings to summarise and illustrate key points.Reflects recent advances in the field, with fully revised text, updated illustrations and tables, and new references in each chapter.Contains concise, readable chapters on new echocardiographic techniques such as contrast and 3-D.Includes a new section on the echocardiography laboratory and five new chapters covering pericardial disease, transesophageal echocardiography, and more.