Graphical Display System

CARDIAC ULTRASOUND has greatly enhanced our ability to define structural disorders in the heart and great vessels. While certain cardiac diseases lend themselves to firm diagnosis by M-mode echocardiography, many valvular and congenital disorders result in normal or nonspecific echocardiographic findings. In these disorders structural abnormalities clearly exist which cannot be evaluated with present echocardiographic techniques. A range-gated pulsed Doppler device has therefore been developed which can identify blood flow patterns at well-defined intracardiac locations.1 4 By demonstrating whether intracardiac flow is normal or pathologic, direct inference can be made as to what structural abnormality exists. The use of the pulsed Doppler device for the evaluation of murmurs has been previously described using an audible signal as the primary output for interpretation.1 This system however has recently been further improved by the introduction of a graphical recording method which increases ease of interpretation, provides a printed record of pulsed Doppler findings, and allows for more precise timing of blood flow events. It is the purpose of this paper to illustrate the applications of this graphic technique in identifying valvular abnormalities and septal defects.