Doctors Set Protocols for Pediatric Echocardiograms

May 11, 2010 - “Echocardiographic quantification is crucial in the diagnosis and management of patients with acquired and congenital heart disease,” said Leo Lopez, M.D., FASE, of Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, Bronx, N.Y., in a report published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography (JASE).

In the document, physicians offer methods to quantify pediatric echocardiograms. Due to the need for consensus on how to measure the size of each cardiovascular structure, the paper describes the recommended protocols for the morphometric evaluation of the heart in children with or without congenital heart disease.

“A collection of quantitative data from a normal pediatric population is required to function as the standard against which all measurements are compared,” Lopez explained. “We hope the recommendations will lead to the creation of a normative database of pediatric measurements.”

The authors emphasize the recommended measurements are those that can be performed in a pediatric examination and not necessarily those that must be part of the study. The researchers also explain the importance of adjusting measurements of cardiovascular structures for the effects of body size.

For more information: www.asecho.org/guidelines