CVIS technology speeds diagnosis, saves lives
Michael is the very picture of health. An athletic 13-year-old, he plays baseball, basketball, skis and participates in student government at his Chicago school. He has also undergone three major heart procedures — the first when he was only 2 days old.
Shortly after birth, Michael was rushed to Children’s Memorial Hospital with critical aortic stenosis, a congenital heart defect where there is obstruction of the aortic valve, which regulates flow from the left ventricle to the aorta.
Severe obstruction of the valve can lead to heart failure, necessitating early intervention. "We were first-time parents, and my husband, Michael, and I were in shock," recalls the boy’s mom, Denise.
While the open-heart surgery to relieve obstruction of the valve was successful, Michael’s parents were told that he would need additional surgery when he was older. At age 6, he underwent another procedure on his aortic valve, during which a tiny balloon was inserted across the valve and inflated to widen its opening.
In the intervening years, Michael lived the life of a typical, active kid. "To see him, you would never know he had any heart problems," says Denise.
During his six-month check up earlier this year, Luciana Young, MD, attending physician in the Division of Cardiology, was able to review and compare a series of echocardiographic images of Michael’s valve that had been stored in a new image retrieval system, the Cardiovascular Information System (CVIS). In doing so, she noticed that there had been progressive changes in the degree of obstruction and insufficiency of the valve. Further testing confirmed the need for another surgical procedure.
In July, Michael’s aortic valve was replaced with his pulmonary valve, which controls blood flow to the lungs, and that valve replaced with a donor valve. Within two months of the surgery, Michael was back to playing sports.
A new diagnostic tool
According to Young, director of the Echocardiography Laboratory, children like Michael are benefiting from the CVIS technology, which offers a number of advantages in the diagnosis of heart conditions. It allows cardiologists to instantly call up digitally stored images of the heart taken at various times for side-by-side comparison. In this way, physicians can make quicker diagnoses. When a child has a serious heart condition, time is of the essence.
"As cardiologists, our ability to care for patients has significantly improved since we acquired the CVIS system," says Young. "Previously we stored these images on videotape, which made it difficult to quickly find the images we wanted. Now we can instantaneously bring up previous studies on a patient for review and comparison. This technology has really helped us move to the forefront of imaging."
Young lists a number of other benefits of the CVIS system. Images can be easily copied onto CD or shared via email with colleagues for a second opinion. When clinically indicated, three-dimensional images can also be stored and viewed. The system has allowed creation of an echocardiographic database for teaching and research purposes, improving academic and recruitment potential, and has improved the efficiency of the scanning and interpretation of studies. It also allows cardiologists at the hospital’s main location in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood to instantly interpret tests performed at its six suburban outpatient centers.