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Transesophageal Echocardiography in Cardiac Surgical Emergencies
Author(s) -
Çiçek Sertaç,
Demirkiliç Ufuk,
Kuralay Erkan,
Tatar Harun,
Ozturk Omer
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of cardiac surgery
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.428
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1540-8191
pISSN - 0886-0440
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8191.1995.tb00604.x
Subject(s) - medicine , perioperative , surgical emergency , intensive care unit , hemodynamics , aortic dissection , cardiac output , cardiology , surgery , radiology , aorta
A bstract The value and utility of transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in unstable cardiac surgical patients have been assessed; 119 TEE studies were performed and evaluated in the emergency setting. The studies were performed in the cardiac surgical intensive care unit (n = 62) and in the operating room (n = 57). There were 81 men and 38 women with a mean age of 58.2 years. The indications for TEE were as follows: hypotension refractory to conventional treatment (n = 83); prosthetic or native valve dysfunction (n = 25); and suspected aortic dissection (n = 10). TEE provided valuable diagnostic information in 107 patients and was completely normal in 12 patients. Based on these results 22 patients had urgent surgical intervention without further studies. The average time to diagnosis was 11.2 minutes. No significant complications were noted. Our results suggest that TEE is highly diagnostic for most of the abnormalities responsible for hemodynamic instability in the perioperative period and facilitates decision making in cardiac surgical emergencies.