Due to copyright issues, an electronic copy of the thesis must be ordered from the faculty. For the faculty to have time to process the order, the order must be received by the faculty at the latest 2 days before the public defence. Orders received later than 2 days before the defence will not be processed. After the public defence, please address any inquiries regarding the thesis to the candidate.
Trial Lecture – time and place
See Trial Lecture.
Adjudication committee
- First opponent: Professor Steen Hvidfeldt Poulsen, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark
- Second opponent: Professor Mai Tone Lønnebakken, University of Bergen, Norway
- Third member and chair of the evaluation committee: Professor emeritus Sverre Erik Kjeldsen, University of Oslo
Chair of the Defence
Professor Emeritus Odd Ragnar Geiran, University of Oslo
Principal Supervisor
Senior Consultant, PhD Jan Erik Otterstad, Vestfold Hospital Trust
Summary
Since echocardiography was introduced into clinical practice in the 1950’s, the development has been steady. In recent years, advanced techniques have provided new opportunities for diagnostics and follow-up. In the doctoral thesis “Clinical utility of advanced echocardiographic methods in a general hospital”, Ingvild Billehaug Norum and colleagues evaluated the utility of 2D left ventricular function imaging by speckle tracking and 3D transthoracic echocardiography. The three studies of the thesis investigated three different patient groups commonly presented in general cardiology.
The first study investigated patients presenting to the emergency department with chest pain, but without clear evidence of acute coronary syndrome. A new method for assessing regional longitudinal strain by speckle tracking showed promising results for detecting or ruling out significant coronary artery disease.
The second study explored if there would be an association between deterioration of global longitudinal strain measured by speckle tracking from baseline to 3 months and subsequent cardiovascular events following an acute myocardial infarction. After a mean follow-up of 3.3 years, such an association was not found.
In the third study investigating the potential benefit of 3D over 2D echocardiography in the grading of aortic stenosis, both echocardiographic methods underestimated the dimensions measured in comparison with reference methods. 3D echocardiography was less feasible and reproducibility was lower than with 2D. Hence, the conclusion was that 2D should still be the primary echocardiographic tool.
These findings shed some light on the clinical utility of the advanced echocardiographic methods in everyday clinical practice. Careful consideration of the settings in which these techniques are used, and knowledge of their limitations in clinical practice are essential for these techniques to be beneficial in general cardiology.
Additional information
Contact the research support staff.