Echocardiology comprises all aspects of diagnostic application of ultrasound to cardiac patients. It is probably the fastest growing non-invasive technique today. Almost all progress in this young and exciting field has been the positive result of close co-operation between medical and technical scientists. This book contains a series of lectures held at Erasmus University Rotterdam in June 1977 and is divided in three sections: - clinical echocardiology, consisting of both an introduction to the basic principles as well as a wide variety of applications aimed at the clinically oriented reader. - Doppler methods, where in addition to its clinical applications also the engineering of new developments will be presented. - the two dimensional real-time imaging where many new techniques including com­ puter methods, holography and acousto-optical systems will be discussed. We hope that this book will stimulate communication between scientists of various disciplines and nationalities. N.Bom J. Roelandt P.G. Hugenholtz Rotterdam, June 1977 III Preface The last three decades have seen a remarkable advance in diagnostic instrument­ ation in diseases of the circulation. In the 1940's the only diagnostic aids were the electrocardiogram and simple X-ray. These were quickly followed by the cardiac ca­ theter, phonocardiography, radio isotope methods and angiocardiography. The de­ velopment of cardiac surgery provided the impetus to developing more accurate methods of diagnosis, preferably those that did not need invasion of the patient. The introduction of ultrasound has contributed towards this aim in the last few years.