The role of Doppler echocardiography in the diagnosis, follow-up, and management of ventricular septal defects.

The defects of the ventricular septum have received special attention from investigators working in echocardiography. The method showed an incomparable capability to identify all the morphological features of the defects. The increasing improvement in definition of transducers associated with conventional and color Doppler contributed significantly to the reliability to detect most of the defects. The great majority of associated lesions can be easily identified and serial examinations allow prediction of which defect may become smaller or even close spontaneously as well as which have acquired deleterious changes in the heart. Several authors have shown very good statistical correlations between echocardiographic indices and hemodynamic parameters in patients with this type of defect. Doppler echocardiography has become an invaluable tool in the diagnosis and follow-up of ventricular septal defect reducing the need for cardiac catheterization and helping management of these patients.