[Value of echocardiography and heart Doppler in the diagnosis and therapeutic orientation of congestive heart failure--the importance of diastolic dysfunction].

Echocardiography and cardiac-Doppler are very useful techniques to achieve etiologic diagnosis and evaluate therapeutic strategies for heart failure, and left ventricular hypertrophy is known as a serious risk factor for cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. Echocardiography establishes, in an easy and noninvasive way, the etiologic diagnosis of heart failure and is a very sensitive technique for the diagnosis and follow-up of patients with left ventricular hypertrophy. On the other hand, diastolic dysfunction is an early manifestation of several conditions associated with heart failure emerging from the diastolic mechanism. The author emphasizes the role of cardiac Doppler in the early diagnosis of diastolic dysfunction and how findings provided by this procedure can lead to more adequate therapeutic measures and assess accurate prognostic information.