Clinical Usefulness of Three -Dimensional Echocardiography

Over the past several years, live real time threedimensional echocardiography has evolved into a clinically useful modality which has provided significant incremental information over the most widely used two-dimensional echocardiography in many cardiac disease entities. This is mainly because unlike two-dimensional echocardiography which provides only a thin, slice -like view of a cardiac structure at any given time, the three-dimensional technique encompasses a large region of the heart containing many cardiac structures which can be displayed from any vantage perspective and angulation including en face views. Thus the technique provides a comprehensive assessment of cardiac structures which may be difficult to do with two-dimensional echocardiography.