Machine Learning–Guided Echocardiogram Image Acquisition—Sample Echocardiography Study

Novel software, developed using deep-learning technology and recently authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration, can provide real-time prescriptive guidance to novice operators about how to obtain transthoracic echocardiographic (TTE) images that allow for limited diagnostic assessment of cardiac chambers. This video illustrates a nurse-obtained clip demonstrating diagnostic-quality long-axis views; short-axis aortic and mitral valve and papillary muscle views; and apical 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-chamber, subcostal 4-chamber, and inferior vena cava views. A study of the technology concluded that untrained nurses could obtain images sufficient for trained echocardiographers to evaluate left ventricular (LV) size and function, right ventricular (RV) size, and presence vs absence of pericardial effusion. If the software utility and accuracy is confirmed across studies and users, it could make echocardiography more accessible outside of specialty offices and centers. Click the Related Article link for complete details.