European heart journal cardiovascular Imaging
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Jul 2014
ReviewUpdated standards and processes for accreditation of echocardiographic laboratories from The European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging.
Standards for echocardiographic laboratories were proposed by the European Association of Echocardiography (now the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging) 7 years ago in order to raise standards of practice and improve the quality of care. Criteria and requirements were published at that time for transthoracic, transoesophageal, and stress echocardiography. This paper reassesses and updates the quality standards to take account of experience and the technical developments of modern echocardiographic practice. It also discusses quality control, the incentives for laboratories to apply for accreditation, the reaccreditation criteria, and the current status and future prospects of the laboratory accreditation process.
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Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging · Jul 2014
Multicenter Study Observational StudyEuropean multicentre validation study of the accuracy of E/e' ratio in estimating invasive left ventricular filling pressure: EURO-FILLING study.
The non-invasive estimation of left ventricular filling pressures (LVFPs) represents a main goal in the clinical setting. Current recommendations encourage the use of pulsed-wave Tissue Doppler for calculating the ratio between the preload-dependent transmitral E velocity and the average of septal and lateral early diastolic velocities (e') of the mitral annulus. Despite its wide use, real utility of the E/e' ratio has been recently challenged in patients with either very advanced heart failure or preserved left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction. However, only few studies performed the invasive and non-invasive estimation of LVFP simultaneously. The EURO-FILLING Study will validate the E/e' ratio (and additional non-invasive estimates) against simultaneously measured LVFP obtained by left heart catheterization in a multicentre study involving reference European echo laboratories collecting a wide population sample size of cardiac patients with and without heart failure. ⋯ The EURO-FILLING study is expected to provide important information on non-invasive assessment of LVFP and to contribute to the standardization of this assessment in clinical practice.