Joint virtual issue on recent advances in veterinary cardiac imaging

Diagnostic Imaging of Cardiovascular Disease in Small Animals

“…For several decades in the last century, thoracic radiography and fluoroscopy, with or without the use of contrast medium (i.e., contrast angiography), were the imaging techniques of choice to investigate dogs and cats affected by congenital or acquired CVD [ 1 , 2 ]. Radiography is the most commonly available imaging technique in the veterinary clinical setting and allows the simultaneous depiction of the cardiac silhouette, pulmonary and other thoracic vessels, as well as pulmonary parenchyma and pleural space [ 3 ].…”

“…Starting in the 1970s, the progressively increasing number of available ultrasound technologies, from M-mode via two-dimensional sector and then three-dimensional volume scanning techniques, in combination with various Doppler methods (spectral, color-coded and tissue Doppler) and other advanced techniques (e.g., contrast echocardiography, strain and speckle-tracking imaging), has considerably increased understanding of normal and abnormal cardiovascular anatomy and function [ 1 ]. For example, prior to echocardiography, large breed dogs with cardiac arrhythmias or cardiac enlargement and CHF were diagnosed with the generic term of idiopathic or congestive cardiomyopathy [ 2 ].…”

“…With the advent of diagnostic ultrasound and the capability to more precisely quantify heart chamber size, wall thickness and contractility, as well as blood flow through the heart, specific types of myocardial disease of both dogs and cats were identified, such as dilated, hypertrophic or restrictive cardiomyopathy [ 2 ]. The widespread use of echocardiography has made it the dominant cardiac imaging modality in daily veterinary clinical practice [ 1 , 2 ]. Furthermore, the use of echocardiography as the reference diagnostic method has enabled the investigation of the diagnostic accuracy of thoracic radiography for the diagnosis of congenital and acquired CVD in small animals [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”