3D Echo Intensive Course

Course directors: Luigi P. Badano, MD, Denisa Muraru, MD


Alumni Club


3D Echo 3D Echo

3D ECHO INTENSIVE COURSE

The advent of three-dimensional echocardiography (3D echo) has increased the clinical impact of non-invasive imaging and significantly improved our understanding and management of cardiac diseases.
Transthoracic 3DE enables an easier, more accurate and reproducible interpretation of the complex anatomy of cardiac structures, overcoming the intrinsic limitations of conventional echocardiography.
The availability of unprecedented views of heart valves and cardiac chambers from any perspective in the beating heart provides valuable clinical information and new levels of confidence in diagnosing heart diseases.
 
One major advantage of the third dimension is the improvement in the accuracy and reproducibility of chamber volume measurement by eliminating geometric assumptions and errors caused by foreshortened views. Another benefit of 3D echo is the realistic en face views of heart valves, enabling a better appreciation of the severity and mechanisms of valve diseases in a unique, anatomically- sound manner.
However, 3D echo is a technically demanding technique and, for its effective use, echocardiographers need specific education and training. There is a clear need to learn how to acquire volumetric data sets without artifacts, and how to navigate within the data sets to obtain the desired views. New tools like cropping, slicing and thresholding are available to manipulate the data sets in order to visualize the cardiac structures of interest. Finally, various ways to display the information are available and can be used to address different clinical issues.
To help echocardiographer who wish to implement 3D echo in the routine of their echo-lab, a 4-day intensive theoretical and practical course with hands-on sessions in the morning and theoretical lessons in the afternoon has been set up.

Course language

English (no translation will be available)

Venue

Department of cardiac, thoracic and vascular sciences,
University of Padua, Medical School,
Via Giustiniani 2,
35128 Padua, Italy

Learning Objectives

Those who will attend the theoretical sessions will receive a comprehensive up-to-date about state-of-the-art 3D transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography.
Those who will attend both theoretical and practical sessions will also learn how to acquire 3D echo data sets, display them and perform quantitative analyses at workstation. No practical 3D transesophageal echo acquisition will be allowed to attendees for safety and legal reasons.
Important! The practical sessions will be performed using Vivid E95 and Epiq 7 echo scanners (upon request Vivid E9 and iE33 scanners can be accessed as well) and EchoPac BT 2.02 and QLab 10.0 workstations.

Teaching material and tools

Suggested readings

  1. Badano LP, Lang RM, Zamorano JL “Textbook of Real-Time Three-Dimensional Echocardiography” Springer-Verlag London Ltd, London, 2011
  2. Badano LP, Galderisi M, Muraru D, Mondillo S. “Ecocardiografia multi planare e tridimensionale real-time”, MB&Care, Livorno; 2011 (Book in Italian)
  3. Shernan S, Lang R, Mor-Avi V, Shirali G. Comprehensive atlas of 3D echocardiography, Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Philadelphia 2012
  4. Shiota T. 3D echocardiography, 2nd edition, Taylor & Francis group, Boca Raton, 2013

THEORETICAL LESSON PROGRAMME

Theoretical Sessions at 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, from Monday to Thursday

Day1

  1. General concepts about 3D vs 2D: why do we need 3D? - 3D probes (TTE and TOE) - physics of 3D echocardiography - the third dimension
  2. How to acquire and display 3D data sets: acquisition modes - rendering techniques - cropping - slicing - thresholding - artifacts and how to avoid them - acquisition protocols - 3D echo anatomy
  3. How to implement 4D echo in the routine of the echo lab?

Day2

  1. Left ventricle: Acquisition and display techniques - Volumes - Mass - Shape - 4D strain - Regional and global function (ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathies)
  2. Right ventricle: Acquisition and display techniques - Regional and global function
  3. Atria: Acquisition and display - Echo anatomy: left atrial appendage, pulmonary veins - Global geometry and phasic function

Day3

  1. Mitral valve: Acquisition and display techniques - Quantification - Mitral valve diseases - Mitral annulus quantification in normal and diseases
  2. Aortic valve: Acquisition and display techniques – Quantification - Aortic valve diseases
  3. Tricuspid valve: Acquisition and display techniques - Tricuspid valve diseases
  4. How to implement 4D echo in the routine of the echo lab?

Day4 (a choice of 4 topics among the following according to attendees’ educational needs)

  1. Congenital heart diseases: Atrial septal defects - Patent foramen ovale - Ventricular septal defects - Uni-/ Bi- and Quadri-cuspid aortic valve - Mitral cleft - Parachute mitral valve - Cor triatriatum - Univentricular heart - Ebstein disease - Pulmonary valve
  2. Masses: Tumors - Thrombi
  3. Pharmacological stress echo
  4. 3rd generation 3D transoesophageal echo
  5. Monitoring interventional procedures: MitraClip procedure - TAVR procedure - Left atrial appendage closure - ASD closure

Registration fees:

Theoretical sessions only (available seats = 20): 600 €
Theoretical and practical sessions (available seats = 6): 2500€

Six seats for theoretical sessions only and two seats for both theoretical and practical sessions will be reserved to EACVI HIT members with a 50% discount on the registration fee.

NEXT COURSES STARTING DATES

2014 June 09th
2014 October 27th

2015 March 2th
2015 May 25th
2015 October 26th

2016 March 14th
2016 May 23rd
2016 October 24th

2017 March 27th
2017 June 19th
2017 November 6th

2018 March 19-23
2018 May 21-25
2018 November 5-9

2019 May 20-24 (only theoretical places available)

For further information, contact mail Ms Barbara Hildenbrand or download download Brochure.