Echocardiography: frontier imaging in cardiology.

This article reviews the recent developments in echocardiography that have maintained this technology at the forefront of day-to-day imaging in clinical cardiology. The primary reason for most requests for imaging in cardiovascular medicine is to assess left ventricular structure and function. As our understanding of left ventricular mechanics has become more intricate, tissue Doppler and speckle tracking modalities have been developed that deliver greater insights into diagnosis of cardiomyopathy and earlier warning of ventricular dysfunction. Increased accuracy has been achieved with the dissemination of real-time three-dimensional echocardiography, which has also acquired a central role in the pre-operative assessment of patients prior to reparative valvular surgery. The use of contrast has broadened the indications for transthoracic echocardiography and has increased the accuracy of stress echocardiography, while reducing the number of patients who cannot be scanned because of a limited acoustic window. Finally, echocardiography will be seen in the future not only as a diagnostic tool in those affected by cardiovascular disease but also as a method for prediction of risk and perhaps activation of targeted treatment.