Effective January 1, 2025, the new CPT code 0932T – Noninvasive detection of heart failure derived from augmentative analysis of an echocardiogram that demonstrated preserved ejection fraction, with interpretation and report by a physician or other qualified health care professional will replace the previous HCPCS outpatient code C9786.

This code will be available for use in both the physician office and hospital outpatient settings. Additionally, this service will continue to be covered in the hospital inpatient setting using the New Technology Add-on Payment (NTAP) code XXE2X19.

Questions about coding? ASE provides members access to a coding expert. Log in to your ASE Member Portal and click “Advocacy,” then “Ask A Coding Expert” to submit your questions.

The January issue of JASE includes a brief research communication titled, “Sustained Benefits of Mavacamten in Patients With Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: Long-Term Assessment Using Artificial Intelligence–Electrocardiogram and Echocardiographic Data.” Author Said Alsidawi, MD, remarks, “In this paper, we show that mavacamten has sustained benefit on left ventricular diastolic function based on AI-ECG data and echo parameters when assessed after 6 months of therapy. These benefits were independent of LVOT gradient relief and might suggest an intrinsic effect on the myocytes.”

Two other brief research communications are included in this issue; the first discusses a novel echocardiography feature-tracking algorithm for stabilized frame-to-frame extraction of aortic root diameters in the parasternal long axis, and another comes to us from Australia and New Zealand, spotlighting young people with rheumatic mitral regurgitation living in remote areas. This issue’s original investigations incorporate a variety of topics including cardiac function in long COVID, coronary artery disease, and normal values in 3D echocardiography. An editorial comment accompanies an original investigation on the prevalence of diastolic and systolic mitral annular disjunction in patients with mitral valve prolapse. Rounding out this issue is the correspondence section—read about efficacy of goal-directed Valsalva in patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy taking mavacamten, targeted neonatal echo based hemodynamic consultation in the ICU, and dobutamine in low-flow, low-gradient severe aortic stenosis with preserved ejection fraction.

This month’s President’s Message is guest written by members of ASE’s Research and Research Oversight Committees, Jonathan Lindner, MD, FASE; Daniel Forsha, MD, FASE; and Raymond Stainback, MD, FASE, and highlights the vital work of clinician-scientists and ASE’s ongoing efforts to support scientists and innovation in this realm of echo.

A new call for papers is now open! A focus issue on chamber quantification is set for publication in early 2026. Papers that address any aspect of echocardiography in quantitative assessment of the cardiac chambers should be submitted by June 1, 2025. Please direct questions to JASE managing editor Debbie Meyer at dmeyer@asecho.org.

It is with immense sadness that we announce that a dedicated ASE and ASE Foundation champion, James Kirkpatrick, MD, FASE, University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC), passed away unexpectedly on January 1, 2025. Dr. Kirkpatrick was a highly respected colleague, mentor, and friend to all who knew him.

Dr. Kirkpatrick graduated from Pomona College and received his MD from Loma Linda University. He completed his internship and residency at Yale in internal medicine and clinical medical ethics and cardiology fellowships at the University of Chicago. He was one of the few ethics-trained cardiologists in the United States. He was on the cardiovascular and ethics faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, before he joined UWMC cardiology in 2015 as Professor of Medicine, Section Chief of Cardiac Imaging, and the Director of the Echo lab at UWMC. He was also a Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, the Ethics Committee Chair, and an Ethics Consultant at UWMC.

Dr. Kirkpatrick’s volunteerism for ASE began in 2009 just three years after joining ASE as a Scientific Sessions Abstract Grader. This was just the beginning of a tremendous volunteer career at ASE that included serving on the ASE Board of Directors 2016-2019 and most recently as the chair of the ASE Foundation Board (2022-2024). He was currently serving as the chair of the Awards Committee and co-chair of Echo Hawaii that is set to take place in a couple weeks. He was the chair of the 2023 ASE Scientific Sessions, an advocate for and member of the ImageGuideEcho Registry, a key member in creating the Critical Care Echocardiography Specialty Interest Group that became a Council in 2022, and a member of the JASE Editorial Board (2016-2022).

Dr. Kirkpatrick gave many lectures at ASE Scientific Sessions over the years, including the Richard E. Kerber Ethics/Humanitarian Lecture titled “Ethical Challenges in the Practice of Echocardiography: What is Right and How Do We Do It?” in 2018. He was the chair of the September 2024 ASE Guideline “Recommendations for Cardiac Point-of-Care Ultrasound Nomenclature” and the April 2020 “Recommendations for Echocardiography Laboratories Participating in POCUS and Critical Care Echocardiography Training.” He also served on the writing group of the August 2015 “Echocardiography in the Management of Patients with LVADs,” and chaired two ASE COVID statements (2020 and 2024).

Everyone who knew Dr. Kirkpatrick knew he was passionate about education and global health events in medically underserved areas. He was an integral leader on five ASE Foundation Global Health outreach events in Vietnam, which is the home country of his wife Thanh. His goal was to establish sustainable medical education mechanisms that would yield long-lasting benefits even after the Foundation’s volunteers left.

Dr. Kirkpatrick’s dedication to his patients, his peers, and the field of cardiovascular ultrasound will be tremendously missed. Our hearts go out to his wife and his three children, his colleagues at the University of Washington, and his ASE family.

The latest issue of CASE is now available with intriguing reports, including “The Spectrum of Diagnostic Findings in Postcardiotomy Tamponade.” CASE Editor-in-Chief Vincent Sorrell, MD, FASE, remarked, “Every month, CASE reminds us why it was started as a mechanism to add value to our clinical practice. This month’s issue was no different as Kamran et al. elegantly described carefully performed echocardiography including correlative CT scans and right heart hemodynamic data. These authors reported their findings on two patients to showcase the array of diagnostic modalities for localized postcardiotomy tamponade. Their first case example with focal RA collapse due to a localized hemorrhage is an impressive image that could very easily be overlooked. In my large, university clinical practice, this deadly pathologic finding is either missed entirely or identified late in its clinical course at least once every year. Reports such as this serve as educational tools to remind us of this post-operative complication and its variable clinical presentation. All individuals who interpret or acquire echo images should read this report to maintain a high index of suspicion so as not to miss this localized tamponade finding.”

This issue opens with the Interventional Echocardiography category, providing readers with a greater understanding of the symbiotic relationship between echo and percutaneous structural heart repairs. Reports include a successful edge-to-edge repair of an interscallop origin of MR, TEE to guide percutaneous mitral valve repair in three patients who were post mitral annuloplasty, and percutaneous mechanical circulatory support in a patient with a post-infarct ventricular septal rupture. A case in the Multimodality Imaging category includes a contrasting comparison between two unique LV apical pathologies with an emphasis on the value of complementary tomographic imaging. Congenital Heart Disease rounds out this issue, reporting on the unintended consequences of a patient who underwent surgery for an atrial septal defect and was found to have a persistent shunt.

In this final issue of 2024, Dr. Sorrell’s editorial describes the connection between echocardiography and crystals, the latter of which we can all appreciate for their embodiment of growth and change as we head into the new year.

SUBMIT your case report to us! Whether it will be your first time submitting a case or your 50^th, we are here to make it a great experience. Email us with questions or submit your report today!

The December issue of JASE includes a state-of-the-art review titled, “Noninvasive Imaging for Native Aortic Valve Regurgitation.” Lead author Vidhu Anand, MBBS, FASE, remarks, “Comprehensive evaluation of aortic regurgitation (AR) includes assessing valve morphology, AR severity and mechanism, and left ventricular (LV) remodeling. Quantification of regurgitant volume and effective regurgitant orifice area is essential, with integration of semiquantitative and qualitative parameters when quantification is not feasible. Advanced imaging techniques, such as cardiac magnetic resonance, are valuable for assessing AR severity and detecting early LV dysfunction, especially when echocardiographic findings are inconclusive or discordant.”

This issue’s original investigations incorporate a variety of topics including early fetal echocardiography, congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries, cardiac mechanics in HCM, and glycemic control and cardiac function in diabetes mellitus. One editorial comment accompanies the original investigation in early fetal echocardiography, discussing early heart checks and the role of transvaginal cardiac imaging in clinical practice. Four brief research communications follow with reports on LV diastolic dysfunction in patients with heart failure with a higher ventricular ejection fraction, how to balance safety with accuracy in lung ultrasound, improving prenatal detection of congenital heart disease, and the RV to pulmonary artery coupling and prognosis in transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis. Rounding out this issue are two letters to the editor related to the impact of perivascular amyloid deposition on cardiac remodeling in AL amyloidosis.

This month’s President’s Message highlights a gift you might like to consider for yourself this holiday season: attendance at ASE’s 50^th anniversary celebration in Nashville next September. Attendees of the ASE 50 Experience will have many exciting improvements in store including an ASE Goes Green campaign to reduce the environmental footprint, a new content delivery platform, and more!

A new call for papers is open now! A focus issue on chamber quantification is set for publication in early 2026. Papers that address any aspect of echocardiography in quantitative assessment of the cardiac chambers should be submitted by June 1, 2025. Please direct questions to JASE managing editor Debbie Meyer at dmeyer@asecho.org.

Tune into our Author Spotlight page for interviews between JASE Editor-in-Chief Patricia Pellikka, MD, FASE, and authors of recently published papers. November’s interview features Nils Sofus Borg Mogensen, MD, discussing his paper, “Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography in Low-Gradient Aortic Stenosis.”

Please see the December ASE Education Calendar for a listing of educational opportunities far and wide.

The latest issue of CASE is now available with intriguing reports, including “Exaggerated Pressure Recovery during Pregnancy: A Multimodal Approach to Assessment of Prosthetic Aortic Stenosis Severity.” CASE Editor-in-Chief Vincent Sorrell, MD, FASE, remarked, “Connor et al. reported serial Doppler echocardiography on a complex young, pregnant woman with Turner syndrome, prior aortic valve and ascending aortic surgery. They compare findings to both baseline and an earlier uncomplicated pregnancy, including mean and peak CWD gradients, indexed effective orifice areas (note: indexing is important, given the history of Turner and suspected short stature), invasive hemodynamics, and a dynamic cardiac CT of the prosthetic AVR for correlation. The major discrepancies between echo and cath stimulated the authors to write this report which provides readers with a fabulous discussion regarding the many factors that contributed. These differences were the results of her progressing pregnancy, previous valve and aortic surgery, and important impact of pressure recovery phenomenon. If you enjoy cardiovascular physiology and the many factors that alter echo hemodynamics, be sure to read all about it.”

Panidapu et. al add to this Hemodynamic Corner category with their report on how coexistent severe tricuspid regurgitation can lead to underestimating the severity of mitral stenosis. Two reports in the Cardiac Tumors and Pseudotumors category uphold the importance of echo through the discovery of a large right atrial thrombus and pulmonary embolism in a 22-month-old girl, and a case of synchronous cardiac diffuse B-cell lymphoma, treated successfully by chemotherapy after early rapid diagnosis with echocardiography. Coronary Artery Disease rounds out this issue, reporting on the methods of echocardiographic detection of a partially obscured ventricular septal defect in a patient with a post-infarction ventricular septal rupture.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, be sure to read Dr. Sorrell’s editorial as he expresses gratitude for all that the field of echocardiography bestows upon its patients and practitioners.

SUBMIT your case report to us! Whether it will be your first time submitting a case or your 50^th, we are here to make it a great experience. Email us with questions or submit your report today!

The November issue of JASE includes a state-of-the-art review titled, “Advances in the Assessment of Patients With Tricuspid Regurgitation: A State-of-the-Art Review on the Echocardiographic Evaluation Before and After Tricuspid Valve Interventions.” Lead author Luigi Badano, MD, PhD, FASE, remarks, “The tricuspid valve (TV) is not merely the right counterpart of the mitral valve. It has a distinct anatomy, featuring three leaflets as opposed to two, and a more pliable annulus. Additionally, it functions in a unique hemodynamic environment, working in a volume pump rather than a pressure pump. Therefore, it requires a specialized approach and different threshold values for evaluating its severity before and after valve repair interventions. Conventional parameters used to evaluate right ventricular geometry and function may be misleading in patients with moderate to severe tricuspid regurgitation. Three-dimensional echocardiography has significantly enhanced our understanding of tricuspid valve anatomy, the pathophysiology of tricuspid regurgitation, and the assessment of right ventricular geometry and function.”

This issue’s original investigations incorporate many topics including stress echocardiography in low gradient aortic stenosis, diastolic function and prognosis in heart failure, myocardial shear wave analysis in children, and perinatal cardiac function in congenital heart disease. Additionally, there are five brief research communications and three editorial comments. These reports cover diagnosing severe mitral stenosis, applying appropriate use criteria for echo in an underserved population, effectiveness of negative pressure booths in mitigating airborne infection risk during TEE, prognostic value of echo parameters of the subpulmonary LV in adults with a systemic RV, and shear wave elastography in children with a Fontan circulation. Rounding out this issue are two letters to the editor—one addresses how guidelines reinforce treatment disparities for patients with aortic stenosis and the other describes the importance of a complete hemodynamic assessment of the aortic valve.

This month’s President’s Message highlights the important work of ASE’s advocacy team as they navigate challenges and opportunities within the fluctuating economic realm of cardiovascular ultrasound.

Tune into our Author Spotlight page for interviews between JASE Editor-in-Chief Patricia Pellikka, MD, FASE, and authors of recently published papers. November’s interview features Nils Sofus Borg Mogensen, MD, discussing his paper, “Dobutamine Stress Echocardiography in Low-Gradient Aortic Stenosis.”

Please see the November ASE Education Calendar for a listing of educational opportunities far and wide.