Physicians' Ability to Visually Estimate Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction, Right Ventricular Enlargement, and Paradoxical Septal Motion After a 2-Day Focused Cardiac Ultrasound Training Course.

OBJECTIVE

Focused cardiac ultrasound (FCU) can provide useful information for the management of shock and acute respiratory distress syndrome. This study aimed to determine whether a 2-day focused cardiac ultrasound training course could enable critical care physicians to interpret ultrasound images in terms of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), ratio of right ventricular end-diastolic area to left ventricular end-diastolic area (R/LVEDA), and septal kinetics.

DESIGN

A prospective analysis of an image test score.

SETTING

Ultrasound training programs in 7 regions across China.

PARTICIPANTS

Two hundred forty-seven critical care physicians.

INTERVENTIONS

All participants received a 2-day FCU training, including 4 sessions of basic heart function appraisal, 3 sessions of hands-on practice, and 1 session of image interpretation.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

The post-training total scores were considerably higher than those of pretraining (75.6% v 58.9%, respectively, p < 0.001). After the course, the trainees obtained considerably higher scores on images with LVEF <30% than on images with LVEF 30% to 54% and LVEF ≥55% (100% v 60.0% and 60.0%, respectively, p < 0.001). The trainees obtained considerably higher scores on images with R/LVEDA >1 than on images with R/LVEDA 0.6 to 1 and R/LVEDA <0.6 (90.0% v 80.0% and 80.0%, p = 0.042 and p < 0.001, respectively). The trainees obtained considerably higher scores on images with paradoxical septal movement (PSM) than on images without PSM (100% v 75.0%, respectively, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The physicians' abilities to assess LVEF, RV enlargement, and PSM improved after the training course, and they demonstrated more accurate estimations of the most obviously abnormal images.