Echocardiography along with Doppler color flow mapping act as an important diagnostic tool in identifying ventricular septal defect (VSD). The different types of VSD on Echocardiography have the following features-

• Perimembranous VSD – septal dropout in areas of septal leaflet of tricuspid valve and below right border of aortic annulus.

• Anterior malalignment- appears below the posterior semilunar valve

• Subpulmonary VSD- Appear as ECHO dropout within outflow septum and extends to the pulmonary annulus.

• Inlet AV septal- extends from fibrous annulus of tricuspid valve into the muscular septum

• Muscular defect- can occur anywhere in the septum and could be small, large, single or multiple

ECHO also helps in calculating pulmonary and systemic flow from arterial velocity profile and cross-sectional area of great vessels.

Two dimensional echo (2D) can be used to visualize the defects, and with pulsed wave and color doppler the sensitivity is 90%. The velocity across the defect can be used to calculate the gradient, and calculate the RV and PA pressures.

{{#ev:youtube|1u2EK9S8q5s}}

{{#ev:googlevideo|6643787626215386202}}

{{#ev:googlevideo|5841159884627614577}} For more info and images, see Echo in Ventricular Septal Defect

Template:WikiDoc Sources