Quantitative cardiac ultrasound

This thesis is about the various aspects of quantitative cardiac ultrasound. The first four chapters are mainly devoted to the reproducibility of echocardiographic measurements. These . are focussed on the variation of echocardiographic measurements within patients. An important issue, since this variation determines the distinction between a real change of the measurement in a single patient or a_ difference caused by chance. The problems of the estimation of the variation of measurements within patients and its clinical implications are elaborated more specifically for Doppler velocity measurements and for cardiac volume determinations using cross-sectional echocardiography. Next, there are two chapters about echocardiographically determined normal ranges of cardiac dimensions. These reference ranges provide for the quantitative distinction between sickness and health. The last two chapters of this thesis deal with the newest aspect of quantitative cardiac ultrasound: non-invasive cardiac tissue characterisation using integrated backscatter measurements. These chapters are focussed on the distinction between normal myocardial tissue and acute ischemic cardiac muscle