What we do
About our project
Echocardiography in congenital heart disease
- Project: Prognostic value of Speckle tracking echocardiography in congenital heart disease.
Speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) is an echocardiographic imaging technique that analyzes the motion of tissues in the heart by using the naturally occurring speckle pattern in the myocardium or blood when imaged by ultrasound. With STE the cardiac function can be assessed. In this project, we focus on de prognostic value of STE in congenital heart disease.
- Project: LV flow patterns in systolic heart failure: A new aspect elucidated by high-frame rate echocardiography.
New developments in ultrasound imaging hardware and image reconstruction are enabling completely new ranges of diagnostics and therapy in the cardiovascular field. High-framerate ultrasound contributes to advancement of healthcare, in the sense that it will enable a more accurate and less invasive assessment of ventricular systolic and diastolic function, and vascular disease. The project addresses major clinical issues with technical breakthroughs: Novel ultrafast ultrasound imaging (or high-framerate ultrasound, HFRUS) that creates thousands of images per second enables us to enter new diagnostic fields of detailed assessment of LV flow patterns; very fast and very slow flows; blood flow patterns in the heart cavities and in the major vessels like aorta and carotid arteries; myocardial condition, contractility of the myocardium and myocardial perfusion. Imaging all of these potentially provide immediate feedback to the intervention and/or therapy of patient with congenital heart disease.
- Project: A novel standardized model for right ventricle function assessment using two-dimensional I-rotate echocardiography.
Right ventricular function (RVF) has been increasingly recognized as a prognostic factor in a variety of disease states such as left sided heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, and congenital heart lesions. Therefore, accurate and reproducible quantification of RV function is a cornerstone in cardiac imaging. Ideally, RV assessment should be simple, accurate, and inexpensive. We developed a standardized model, based on anatomic landmarks for assessing the RV from one apical view using 2D-transthoracic echocardiography (2D-TTE) iRotate mode. With this novel four-view approach, we will assess patients with a broad variety of congenital heart disease.
Our research focus
Collaborations
Internal collaboration
This group collaborates with
- Biomedical engineering department
- Medical delta
- Department of pulmonology
External collaboration
TU delft
