-
Views
-
Cite
Cite
Nuno M Cardim, Victoria Delgado, Bogdan A Popescu, Handheld Echography devices: ready for prime time?, European Heart Journal, Volume 39, Issue 4, 21 January 2018, Pages 262–263, https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehx777
Close - Share Icon Share
Extract
Nowadays, cardiology and cardiac imaging are essentially quantitative and evidence-based sciences. Accordingly, many of our medical actions are guided by scientific evidence, appropriateness criteria, and cost-effective metrics, and we, cardiac imagers, often struggle to avoid subjectivity, qualitative assessment, and operator dependence on our imaging techniques.The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects the wind to change, but the realist adjusts the sails…
Over the last few years, technological advances have allowed the miniaturization of echocardiography machines, from high-end, fully equipped systems with sophisticated technology, to small devices, no larger than mobile phones, with limited imaging and quantification resources: the hand-held echography devices (HHED).
In these times of quantification, the use of hand-held/pocket size echocardiography devices may be considered going ‘against the tide’. On one hand, it may be seen as a step back, because of its essentially qualitative assessment, reintroducing subjectivity and operator dependency in the clinical arena. On the other hand, they have ‘democratized’ the ultrasound diagnosis (from ‘head to toe’, often performed by non-cardiologists) and have revolutionized the approach to physical examination (Figure 1).
