Echocardiography is a type of ultrasound that uses sound waves to create images of the heart. It is used to assess the heart's size, function, and blood flow. The test is usually performed by a cardiologist or other trained medical professional.
An echocardiogram (echo) is a painless test that uses ultrasound (high-frequency sound waves) to make pictures of your heart. The test is also called cardiac ultrasonography or cardiac ultrasound.
Echo is the most common type of heart imaging test. It’s noninvasive, meaning no needles or dyes are used. An echo does not expose you to radiation (x-rays).
During an echo test, gel is applied to your chest and a hand-held device called a transducer is placed against your skin. The transducer sends out inaudible sound waves at a frequency too high for human ears to hear. These sound waves bounce off your heart and return back to the transducer as echoes.
A computer then uses these echoes to create moving images of your heart chambers, valves and walls on a video screen so the sonographer can see them in real time as well as freeze frame for closer examination if needed.. PDF stands for Portable Document Format which simply means it’s a file format readable by computers regardless of operating system software installed on said machine