Two-dimensional Echocardiography in Infants and Children

In 1981 Dr Jean Lintermans published, with Dr van Dorp, a superb vol­ ume, 'Differential Diagnosis in Pediatric Echocardiography'. It was 'state of the art' with a unique organization, starting with M-mode echocardiograph­ ic findings rather than the disease category, and included a segmental approach to diagnosis, and concluded with an invaluable section on normal echocardiographic values. This volume was a great help to many of us in pediatric cardiology who were discovering the great clinical value of the noninvasive approach to diagnosis. This gave us a 'running start' for our own entry into the field. At that time, the 2 D or sector echocardiogram was finding increasing usefulness and there were several illustrations of this tech­ nique, integrated into that volume. Since 1980, the field of 2 D echocardiography has grown enormously in its usefulness, to the point that it has reduced the need for invasive studies, and has enhanced the precision of invasive studies when required. It is now time for a systematic and thorough approach to this field, and I am delighted that Jean Lintermans has provided us with this book. The pictures are uniformly superb and are very well labelled. The organization is cen­ tered around diagnostic categories, but the same attention to detail is pre­ sent that made the first volume so useful. I particularly value the extensive documentation of diagnostic findings, with numerous literature citations.