Echocardiography in elderly patients.

M-mode and two-dimensional echocardiography are now firmly established as routine noninvasive diagnostic procedures in cardiac patients. Echocardiography is particularly useful in elderly patients because most forms of heart disease affecting this age-group produce typical echocardiographic patterns. Notable examples include idiopathic hypertrophic subaortic stenosis, mitral stenosis, mitral anulus calcification, various forms of mitral regurgitation, and aortic valve calcification and stenosis. Echocardiography can often provide information that could previously only be obtained by cardiac catheterization; it also helps in screening elderly cardiac patients so as to select those in whom more drastic procedures and perhaps surgery are really necessary.