Advances in Research in Right Heart Diseases with Echocardiography

The right ventricle plays an important role in the morbidity and mortality of patients with signs and symptoms of cardiopulmonary disease,and be given enormous attention recently. Echocardiography is routinely used to assess the right heart noninvasively,but the accuracy and reproducibility of evaluating the right ventricle size and function are limited because of the ultrasound techniques and complex right ventricle anatomy. Ultrasound imaging techniques such as Doppler tissue imaging,speckle tracking echocardiography and real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography have continuously developed over recent years,leading to the development of several novel echocardiographic indexes that have been demonstrated its clinical utility and value at present.