Use of standard report of transthoracic echocardiography in clinical practice

Abstract

Recently, transthoracic echocardiography has become a powerful and flexible diagnostic tool providing high quality management of patients with cardiovascular diseases. Development of new technologies and growing number of echocardiographic quantifications require a unified approach to the study and presentation of obtained data. Meanwhile, daily practice demonstrates significant variability of echocardiographic reports which are in use in different hospitals. This discrepancy makes the interpretation of obtained data difficult. In 1980, American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) published first recommendations for performing echocardiographic study. Later, some new ultrasound methods were developed (continuous wave, pulse wave, tissue doppler, stress‑echocardiography, transesophageal echocardiography, contrast study, speckle‑tracking technology) and echocardiography became even more complicated. In 2011, detailed recommendations for an echocardiographic laboratory equipment, medical stuff qualification, careful selection of patients, study reports and results presentation were published by ASE experts. In 2019, recommendations for step‑by‑step performance of echocardiography and data collection were proposed for wide use by ASE. Another organization — European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) focused attention on the problem of data presentation. In 2017 EACVI published expert consensus for standardization of echocardiographic reporting.The article analyzes and explains the significance of standard report parameters for clinical practice. The report includes assessment of heart chambers dimensions and volumes, together with doppler derived hemodynamic features, which are validated and documented in multiple studies. Besides echocardiographic data, standard report also includes patient’s identifying information, anthropologic measures, heart rate, blood pressure and main technical characteristics of ultrasound scanner. The implementation of universal reporting system into routine daily practice may improve overall quality of medical service.