[Survey echocardiography. A comparative evaluation of enlarged heart chambers in the echocardiogram and the plain x-ray].

Eighty patients with various types of heart disease were examined by radiography and sectional studies of the heart on the same day. These were compared with 2-dimensional examinations of the chambers during end-diastole. It was found that echocardiography may demonstrate dilated chambers due to a cardiomyopathy where the plain radiograph is entirely normal. Radiographic enlargement of the left side of the heart is not necessarily due to dilatation of the left ventricle, but can also be caused by gross hypertrophy. Echocardiography is indicated for the investigation of cardiac enlargement due to multivalvular disease, cardiomyopathy, combined left and right cardiac insufficiency and the exclusion of pericardial effusions.