Transesophageal echocardiographic right atrial findings during prosthetic hip replacement

Cardiopulmonary and haemodynamic changes during total hip arthroplasty

“…Embolic phenomena have been detected by TEE during medullary reaming of long bones [8,36,47], and hip and knee arthroplasty [7,8,14,40,43]. The cascades and echogenic masses are bigger at the time of cementing and after reduction [14].…”

“…We have previously shown, using transoesophageal echocardiography (TEE), that intracavitary embolism occurs in the right atrium with two distinct patterns: a`smoke' appearing during reaming of the femoral canal, and well defined echodense masses during cementing [40]. However, no haemodynamic or biochemical changes were found in any patients during operations.…”