Echocardiography has proved a clinically valuable technique, particularly in the diagnosis and evaluation of mitral stenosis, according to investigators in Philadelphia.
Research with sonar equipment "will provide new criteria for diagnosing congenital and acquired heart disease and perhaps aid in long-term postoperative evaluation of patients, the two research groups told The Journal. Also, ultrasound may help determine genesis and mechanisms of heart sounds and murmurs.
Essentially, echocardiography is the application to cardiology of a reflected ultrasound technique commonly used for such purposes as the study of soft tissue tumors and the location and measurement of the fetal head in utero.
In 1952, John M. Reid, then at the University of Minnesota, was one of the biomedical engineers responsible for developing ultrasound equipment for diagnostic purposes. Subsequently, this instrumentation was improved upon and first applied to studying motions of the heart by Swedish and German investigators.
In 1961, under a grant