Imaging Hope: The Essential Role of Echocardiography in Heart Transplantation

Timely diagnosing and monitoring of primary graft dysfunction is pivotal for heart transplant patient surveillance. Transthoracic echocardiography is the primary noninvasive method for follow-up of heart transplant recipients, which provides comprehensive information on cardiac morphology and function. It is a sensitive tool in diagnosing rejection, helping to improve therapeutic approaches for this condition, and monitoring cardiac function during therapy. The echocardiographic examination helps to minimize the risks of complications compared with endomyocardial biopsy and can be performed quickly at the bedside. Moreover, advanced echocardiography techniques such as tissue Doppler imaging and myocardial strain are enhanced methods that reveal minor myocardial dysfunction during acute rejection and cardiac allograft vasculopathy. This review highlights essential echocardiographic characteristics of the normal cardiac allograft and the detection of cardiac allograft rejection, and timely deals with it.