New Cardiovascular Imaging Text Book Focuses on the Patient

December 29, 2009 - Imaging is at the heart of diagnostic procedures and is the focus of the "ESC Textbook of Cardiovascular Imaging", which will be released in early 2010. The book accumulates the expertise of European cardiovascular imagers and is written with a patient rather than technology-based approach, helping clinicians to explain the condition to the patient, with the aid of imaging. The book is divided into sections that treat specific themes involving theory and practice of cardiac imaging and its clinical use in all major cardiovascular diseases from coronary heart disease to cardiomyopathies. Professor J. L. Zamorano Gomez, president of the European Association of Echocardiography, a registered branch of the ESC, Spain, and editor-in-chief of the book, highlights the importance of putting the patient at the center of care. "The key question is always how these modalities can help in our diagnosis. In the near future, CV Imaging will be multidisciplinary," he said. The writers are not only targeting cardiologists but physicians interested in CV Imaging. The book is written by European specialists, almost all of whom are from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The ESC became aware of the need for a book combining the accumulated expertise of European cardiovascular imagers. While the book focuses on four modalities, echocardiography, nuclear imaging, cardiac computed tomography (CT) and cardiac magnetic resonance (MR), specific information tragets the disease and then identifies which modality is appropriate. This book describes a new subspeciality that we will all need in the future: the imaging doctor, who can communicate with clinicians and help them resolve diagnostic dilemmas by choosing the correct technique and interpreting images using a patient-based approach. For more information: www.escardio.org/education