[Real-time two-dimensional Doppler echocardiography in congenital heart disease: its clinical significance].

This study demonstrated the diagnostic usefulness of the newly-developed real-time two-dimensional Doppler echocardiography (2-D Doppler) in congenital heart disease. Among fifty-four patients with congenital heart disease, 18 had ASD; 16, VSD; 6, T/F; 3, PDA; 3, d-TGA; 3, ECD; and 1 each, DORV, PA, PS, Ebstein's anomaly, and ruptured aneurysm of the sinus of Valsalva. Each diagnosis was confirmed by cardiac catheterization and/or surgery. Forty normal cases were subjected as the control. The study cases included 26 adults and 28 children under 15 years old, 13 infants and seven newborns. In 52 cases (96.3%) 2-D Doppler provided diagnostic abnormal intracardiac blood flow images which were compatible with the data of cardiac catheterization and cardiac angiography and/or patients' cardiac anatomy observed during surgery. The blood flow data obtained by 2-D Doppler facilitated determining the appropriate timing of palliative surgery such as the Blalock-Taussig shunt procedure. 2-D Doppler was effective in evaluating medical (pharmaco-echocardiography) and surgical therapy including radical and palliative procedures for congenital heart disease. Thus, 2-D Doppler proved a non-invasive and useful diagnostic method for congenital heart heart disease. Our data suggest that with this technique cardiac surgery can be performed without cardiac catheterization or cardiac angiography in some cases of congenital heart disease.