Pediatric Doppler echocardiography 1987: major advances in technology.

The major advances in the capabilities of pediatric cardiologists to evaluate the heart by ultrasound that have occurred in the last 5 years have been reviewed. In addition to the new Doppler methods, the evolution of higher resolution echo techniques have provided a comprehensive means of evaluating the heart noninvasively. This information has relegated catheterization to a more therapeutic arena, leaving ultrasound as the major diagnostic technique for evaluation of congenital heart disease, both before and after birth.