Echocardiography has become an essential tool for all clinicians involved in managing patients with known or suspected heart diseases. Echocardiography is also widely used for clinical trials in assessing cardiac function and hemodynamics as an enrollment criterion and/or an end-point. Therefore, it is critical that echocardiography techniques and measurements are standardized for best practice and reliable clinical trial result.

The meeting will focus on the use of echocardiography and other imaging modalities for valvular heart disease and heart failure. The basic and the state-of-the-art echocardiography practice will be presented with lectures and breakout sessions. Focus on optimal use of 2-D, 3-D, and strain imaging in the operating room, hemodynamic as well as cardiac emergencies, the emergency department, cardiac catheterization laboratory, and other important clinical areas where echocardiography is essential.