Is Echocardiography Valuable for Screening?

Echocardiography is one of the most widely used imaging modalities for diagnosing cardiac problems but generally is not used to screen asymptomatic patients. To determine whether such screening might be worthwhile, investigators in Norway randomized 6861 adults (mean age, 60; most with cardiac risk factors) who had undergone baseline health assessments to receive either screening transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) or no TTE (control group). About 9% of the TTE group underwent further evaluation because of abnormal TTE findings.

During 15 years of follow-up, all-cause mortality was the same in both groups (roughly 27%). Among predetermined subgroups, such as those with hypertension or varying levels of 10-year risk (high, medium, or low) fo…