Cardiac Transplants

Transthoracic echocardiography is a primary non-invasive modality for investigation of heart transplant recipients. It provides comprehensive information about cardiac structure and function and may be of interest during cardiac biopsy. Precluded by a brief summary of orthotopic and heterotopic cardiac transplantation, this chapter highlights the usefulness of Doppler echocardiography in the assessment of left ventricular and right ventricular systolic and diastolic function, of left ventricular mass, valvular heart disease, pulmonary arterial hypertension and pericardial effusion in heart transplant recipients. Normal echocardiographic findings in a transplanted heart are summarized alongside echocardiographic indicators of rejection.