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European Journal of Echocardiography Advance Access published online on February 19, 2008
European Journal of Echocardiography, doi:10.1093/ejechocard/jen032
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Published on behalf of the European Society of Cardiography. All rights reserved. © The Author 2008. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Individual pulmonary vein imaging by transthoracic echocardiography: an inadequate traditional interpretation

Xinsheng Huang*, Yigao Huang, Tao Huang, Wenhui Huang and Zhendong Huang

Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, No. 106 Zhongshan 2 Road, Guangzhou 510080, China

Received 19 November 2007; accepted after revision 11 January 2008.

* Corresponding author. Tel: +8620 83827812 10260; fax: +8620 83875453. E-mail address: xinshenghuang586{at}tom.com


  Abstract

Aims: There existed an ambiguity in the current echo literature about the identification of the pulmonary veins imaged by echocardiography. This study was designed to identify the site and blood flow of individual pulmonary veins by transthoracic echocardiography.

Methods and results: Transthoracic echocardiography was used to display individual pulmonary veins in the apical and parasternal short-axis views in 20 adult patients with atrial septal defect. Cardiac catheterization, selective angiography, and contrast echocardiography were used to identify and validate the exact site of individual pulmonary veins. The right lower and upper veins were best seen in the apical four-chamber and the near apical five-chamber views, respectively. Both left pulmonary veins were best displayed in the parasternal short-axis view. When all the individual pulmonary veins were seen simultaneously in the apical views, from left to right of the sector, they were the right upper, right lower, left lower, and left upper pulmonary veins, respectively.

Conclusion: This prospective study provides a feasible method to prove that transthoracic echocardiography can visualize clearly and identify accurately the exact site of each pulmonary vein. The information should be helpful to study various pulmonary venous diseases.

Keywords: Echocardiography; Pulmonary vein; Angiography


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