CARDIAC IMAGING
When
Texas Children’s Heart Center wanted to design the best
echocardiogram reading room on Earth, it formed a partnership
with an organization whose projects are frequently out
of this world – NASA.
Often
called “mission control” by its staff, the Heart Center's
echo
reading room is quiet, dark and intense. Its walls are
lined with television monitors – just like NASA’s mission
control – but instead of flight paths, the images on the
screen are children’s beating hearts.
Cardiac
imaging, or echocardiography, is essential in treating
heart disease.
"Here
we performed more than 19,000 echocardiograms last year,"
said Dr. Nancy Ayres, director of the Texas Children's
Echocardiography Lab.
“An
echocardiogram can determine if there is a cardiac defect.
Then, once a child is determined to have a heart problem, an
echocardiogram can track how the heart problem is changing
with the child’s growth.”
There are three types of echocardiograms,
or procedures using ultrasound technology to provide pictures
of the heart:
-
Transthoracic
echocardiogram, a non-invasive test that
allows the doctor to see how the heart’s chambers and
valves are formed and working.
-
Transesophagel
echocardiogram, which passes a long tube bearing
a tiny ultrasound camera through the mouth into the esophagus.
-
Fetal
echocardiogram, for
expectant parents with a family history of heart disease,
fetal echocardiograms are performed on the unborn child.
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