An international meeting of experts on "Cardiovascular Imaging by Ultrasound" was held in Aachen from 26-27 April, 1991. It provided new and interesting insights into what has already been achieved in ultrasound - based cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy and what will be introduced in clinical practice in the near future. Since the introduction of ultrasound in clinical practice in 1984 there has been no other physical principle that has added and will continue to add so much to clinical diagnosis and therapy. Echocardiography, once established as a non-invasive diagnostic tool, is increasingly becoming an invasive technique for cardio-vascular imaging. This book contains the edited contributions from 38 scientists and engineers from all over the world who presented the most up-to-date findings on 2-dimensional echocardiography, different Doppler modalities, contrast and stress echocardiography and the different modalities of transesophageal echocardiography, including mono-,bi- and multiplane TEE, as well as pulsed and CW-Doppler application via TEE. Exciting and promising developments are discussed in the field of intravascular ultrasound, tissue characterization, ultrasound ablation, ultrasound-based 3-dimensional reconstruction of the heart, and high frequency Doppler analysis.

An international meeting of experts on Cardiovascular Imaging by Ultrasound was held in Aachen from 26-27 April, 1991. It provided new and interesting insights into what has already been achieved in ultrasound-based cardiovascular diagnosis and therapy and what will be introduced in clinical practice in the near future. Since the introduction of ultrasound in clinical practice in 1984 there has been no other physical principle that has added and will continue to add so much to clinical diagnosis and therapy. Echocardiography, once established as a non-invasive diagnostic tool, is increasingly becoming an invasive technique for cardiovascular imaging. This book contains the edited contributions from 38 scientists and engineers from all over the world who presented the most up-to-date findings on 2-dimensional echocardiography, different Doppler modalities, contrast and stress echocardiography and the different modalities of transesophageal echocardiography, including mono-, bi- and multiplane TEE, as well as pulsed and CW-Doppler application via TEE. Exciting and promising developments are discussed in the field of intravascular ultrasound, tissue characterization, ultrasound ablation, ultrasound-based 3-dimensional reconstruction of the heart, and high frequency Doppler analysis.

This volume contains most of the invited lectures presented at the second "Interna- tional Symposium on the Evaluation of Cardiac Dynamics by Ultrasound" which was held on May 27-28, 1982, in Hamburg. Main topics of the symposium dealt with new echocardiographic technologies such as the transesophageal technique and digital image processing of echocardio- grams, as well as with latest clinical and experimental results in the fields of contrast and Doppler echocardiography, tissue characterization and analysis of left ventricular function. We are greatly indebted to all participants who kept a very tight schedule in order to have these proceedings available at the time of the meeting. We cordially thank Dr. M. Schluter for his editorial assistance, Mrs. B. Kratzenberg for her secretarial help, and the Pharma-Schwarz Company for their generous financial support. Hamburg, May 1982 The Editors CONTRIBUTORS ABE, A., First Department of Medicine, Osaka University Medical School, 1-1-50, Fukushi- ma, Fukushima-ku, Osaka 553, Japan. BACKS, B., Medizinische Universitiitsklinik Bonn, Abteilung fUr Kardiologie, 5300 Bonn, BRO. BAKER, D.W., Ph.D., Squibb Medical Systems International, 2100 124th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98005, USA. BIAMINO, G., M.D., Klinikum Steglitz, Kardiologische Abteilung, Hindenburgdamm 30, 1000 Berlin 20, BRO. BLEIFELD, W., M.D., Abteilung fiir Kardiologie, Universitiitskrankenhaus Eppendorf, Martini- strasse 52, 2000 Hamburg 20, BRO. BOM, K., Ph.D., Thorax Center, Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Echocardiography has recently become one of' the most important techniques in clinical cardiology. The major advantage of this method is its noninvasive nature enabling us to apply it under a widespread variety of clinical conditions. In the late 1960s, when research and clinical application of echo cardiography were started, and during the first decade investigations were mainly focused on the morphology of the valves and the chambers of the heart. The introduction of two-dimensional echocardiography was a major breakthrough in visualizing different portions of the heart. How ever, the poor resolution of the first devices provided only little qualitative information. With the introduction of phased array 2-D-echo-devices yielding better results and the application of computer techniques for the processing of M-mode and two-dimensional echo cardiograms, a great amount of qualitative information has become available to describe not only the morphology, but also the dynamic function of the heart in a noninvasive manner. This volume summarizes the lectures held at the International Symposium on Echocardiography, Hamburg, September 1978, endeavoring to review the current state of knowledge with regard to echo cardiography in the experimental and clinical setting. We herewith thank all lecturers, who have contributed to the publication and the Pharma-Schwarz Company which enabled us to organize this meeting by a generous subsidy."