Introduction

Echocardiography is the most widely used cardiac imaging modality. Its ability to permit comprehensive assessment of cardiac structure and function combined with its safety, wide availability and ease of application render it indispensable in the management of most patients with a suspected or known cardiac illness. It is therefore not surprising that the use of echocardiography, when performed for appropriate clinical indications, has been shown to be associated with decreased odds of in-hospital mortality.1

However, the wide applicability of echocardiography has resulted in an increasing number of non-cardiologists and non-imagers being involved in its use for clinical purposes. Since many of them are not well familiar with the echocardiography findings, they often find it difficult to navigate through and interpret an echocardiography report. Moreover, echocardiography is a dynamic field with constant addition of newer imaging modalities (eg, three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography), newer measurements (eg, strain) or changes in interpretation algorithms (eg, recent revision of the left ventricular (LV) diastolic function assessment guidelines2). The reporting format, terminologies used and the technologies available at disposal also vary across echocardiography laboratories, further adding to the complexity of the whole process. This review therefore describes a systematic approach to help enable non-imagers extract clinically relevant information from an echocardiography report and effectively apply it for clinical decision making in their patients.