Routine Intraoperative Transesophageal Echocardiography: Impact on Intraoperative Surgical Decision Making, a Single Center Interim Analysis

Abstract

Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has become an important part of armamentarium for anesthesiologists in the management of patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Many studies have demonstrated the safety and utility of TEE in cardiac surgery. With advances in hardware and software, easy availability of resources for learning and optimal understanding of image generation and interpretation, many new findings crop up in the operating room (OR) which may have been missed in preoperative transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), leading to necessary changes in planned surgical procedure. In our retrospective analysis of 726 cases in which TEE was performed over the last 1 year, changes in decision was made in 65 (8.9%) of cases. This included 42 unanticipated findings prior to cardiopulmonary bypass and 23 new findings after CPB, requiring revision in 15 cases. With the increasing use and further impending advances of TEE, the number of cases in which surgical decision will be altered may increase in near future. How to cite this article Badamali AK, Madhavan JS, Ghuman BPS, Subash S, Raj R, Mishra A, Mishra A, Arya VK, Kumar B, Jayant A, Shyam KST, Rana SS, Singh H, Mishra A, Kuthe S, Mahajan S, Prasad S, Mathew S, Arora I, Puri GD. Routine Intraoperative Transesophageal Echocardiography: Impact on Intraoperative Surgical Decision Making, a Single Center Interim Analysis. J Perioper Echocardiogr 2013;1(1):16-20.