The most important publications of the past year in echocardiography.

We review the published literature on clinical echocardiography of the past year. Key topics were valvular heart disease, in particular aortic stenosis, and the imaging requirements for transcatheter aortic valve implantation. Three-dimensional echocardiography and deformation imaging have yielded important new insights in valvular heart disease. Other key fields have been assessment of heart failure, in particular heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, and the relationship of this condition with diastolic dysfunction and left atrial function. Functional imaging of cardiomyopathies was also an important topic.