Technique and imaging for transthoracic echocardiography of the laboratory pig.

Figure 1. Schematic drawings of the human (left panel) from an anterior projection, and a pig (right panel) from the left lateral direction. Compared to the human, the pig heart long axis is anterior–posterior. (Modified with permission from: Crick SJ, Sheppard MN, Ho SY, Gebstein L, Anderson RH. Anatomy of the pig heart: Comparisons with normal human cardiac structure. J Anat 1998; 193; Figure 1c and d). several reasons. The ribs are in close proximity necessitating a small transducer footprint. The thorax is more “oval” in the anterior–posterior direction and the long axis of the heart follows an anterior–posterior direction (Fig. 1). These differences between human and pig are related to a basic difference in body orientation, as