Knobology - Epiq7C

Quick overview of the knobology of the Philips Epiq-7C machine that we use at the NeoCardioLab - Montreal Children's Hospital.

Other presets to adjust for image optimization:

• 2D Opt: Bottom left knob under your touchscreen. It changes the frequency of the transducer. HRes (high frequency, best resolution, less penetration), HGen (mid-frequency, mid-range between your resolution and your frame rate), HPen (low frequency, less resolution, more penetration). Change between these 3 options depending on the image desired. Adjusting the frequency will allow improvement of structure characterization. As such, decreasing the frequency will allow to image deeper structure.

• Res/Spd: Second bottom left knob. One control that adjust nearly 40 pre-processing parameters. Try to change between one and an other to take the best image quality that you like. Best practice is to let it at 12 o'clock.

• Compress: 3rd bottom left knob. Usually around 50. Put it around 44-48 to optimize coronaries and around 52-56 to see well thin leaflets.

• XRES: On the second page of the touchscreen (hit the right arrow, bottom right to change the page). XRES is an image processing algorithm that reduces speckle and enhances contrast resolution. It provides sharper margins and improves border delineation. XRES 1 (smoother image), XRES 5 (coarser image). Default is at 3, so consider putting it at 1 for vessels and 5 in apical if struggling for the visualization of the left ventricular endocardium.

• Adjust gain and lateral gain compensation / time gain compensation

• Adjust the sector width and depth. Make sure to narrow the scanning area to the structure of interest to increase frame rate capture.

• Adjust the focal zone to the structure of interest.