Real-time 3-Dimensional Echocardiography for Assessment of Cardiac Function and Congenital Heart Disease

I. SPECIFIC AIMS

1. To measure and calculate Z Scores of cardiac structures and function using 3-DE in a large cohort of healthy infants, children, and adolescents.
2. To investigate the utility of 3-DE in infants, children and adolescents with congenital and acquired heart disease.

II. BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE

Congenital heart disease (CHD)is one of the most common congenital malformations and is associated with significant mortality and morbidity. Acquired heart diseases are also common and have significant impact on the health of the young. As the therapeutic strategies are evolving, reliable non-invasive methods to image the cardiovascular system and quantitatively assess cardiac function with accuracy and reproducibility are pivotal to define the natural history, to evaluate the results of intervention and to assess long-term outcome.Three-dimensional echocardiography (3-DE) has important clinical applications to CHD. Because of growth throughout childhood,interpretation of these measurements requires normalization of the dimensions of cardiac structures to the size of the body. This is commonly done by the calculation of Z scores for the measurement of interest. Currently available normative data in the medical literature are limited to one-dimensional and two-dimensional echocardiography measurements only.

In this study, we will generate normative data of the 3-DE measurements for cardiac structure and function in a large cohort of healthy infants, children,and adolescents. We will also investigate the utility of 3DE for assessing the cardiovascular structures and cardiac function for congenital and acquired heart disease.