Ultrasound Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Ultrasound, including details on screening, diagnosis, pregnancy, detection.

Unlocking the mysteries of diastolic function: deciphering the Rosetta Stone 10 years later.

Lester SJ, Tajik AJ, Nishimura RA, Oh JK, Khandheria BK, Seward JB

Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Arizona 85259, USA. lester.steven@mayo.edu

It has now been a quarter of a century since the first description by Kitabatake and his associates of the use of echo-Doppler to characterize the transmitral flow velocity curves in various disease states. A decade ago we described the role of echocardiography in the "Evaluation of Diastolic Filling of Left Ventricle in Health and Disease: Doppler Echocardiography Is the Clinician's Rosetta Stone." Over the ensuing decade, advances in echo-Doppler have helped to further decipher the morphologic and physiological expression of cardiovascular disease and unlock additional mysteries of diastology. The purpose of this review is to highlight the developments in echo-Doppler and refinements in our knowledge that have occurred over the past decade that enhance our understanding of diastology.

Published 18 February 2008 in J Am Coll Cardiol, 51(7): 679-89.
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