Historical survey of ophthalmic echography in Croatia.

The first beginnings of ophthalmic echography in Croatia started at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s. When the two largest medical institutions in Croatia, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital (former Dr. Mladen Stojanović General Hospital) and Zagreb University Hospital Center, both in Zagreb, were supplied with ultrasonic diagnostic devices, Krautkrimer/ Siemens Echoophthalmograph and Echoophtalmograph 7200 MA Kretz, they had to start using the instruments. Some ophthalmologists working at these institutions embarked upon acquiring due education at home and abroad. In the mid-1970s, the first diagnostic laboratories were organized at the above mentioned clinical institutions in Zagreb. In the 1970s, two ophthalmologists received Doctor of Science (PhD) degree and veniam legendi. The first papers on echography in domestic professional literature were published in the early 1970s. Postgraduate study in ophthalmology for MS degree started at the School of Medicine, University of Zagreb in 1972. Soon, in 1975, lectures on ultrasonic diagnostics were introduced within the scope of this study. Participating in echographic courses and in SIDUO meetings abroad, some Croatian ophthalmologists became members and even members of the SIDUO Executive Board. The first course in ophthalmic echography as continuing medical education at the Zagreb School of Medicine was held in 1992. Ultrasound Division of the Croatian Ophthalmologic Society was organized in 1994 and 1998. The references accompanying this survey includes all papers on ophthalmic ultrasound published in Croatia and some abroad, thus representing Croatian echographic bibliography.