Right atrial dilation due to left heart disease is a common complication among adults. The present review aimed to describe a case of massively dilated right atrium in a female patient presenting with valvular heart disease and no atrial fibrillation. The results of chest X-ray revealed a large opacity filling the lower right hemithorax, falsely interpreted as a mediastinal mass. During the tra...

Surface echocardiographic imaging of small children is routinely successful in defining anatomical details and Doppler flow patterns with even the most complex congenital cardiac malformations. However, in larger children or adults, imaging is frequently limited. A recent expansion of the role of echocardiography is intraoperative epicardial imaging. Epicardial and postoperative imaging, how...

Atrial myxoma is a benign tumor of the heart that occurs primarily in the left atrium. Floating or large left atrial myxomas frequently cause functional mitral stenosis, may also affect mitral valve structure and flow, and lead to mitral regurgitation. Systemic embolization occurs in around 30% of cases either from tumor fragmentation or complete tumor detachment hence it should be removed as s...

INTRODUCTION As a common morphological change of aging heart, sigmoid ventricular septum is frequently found during routine preoperative evaluation, but often disregarded because of its little clinical importance. However, in this report, we describe a 70-year old patient with sigmoid ventricular septum who developed severe hemodynamic deterioration during liver transplantation because of its u...

OBJECTIVE To determine the importance of contrast echocardiography in the diagnosis of intrapulmonary vascular dilations in patients with severe liver disease, who are candidates for liver transplantation. METHODS The study comprised 76 patients with chronic liver disease and no evidence of intrinsic pulmonary disease, heart failure, or congenital heart disease with intracardiac communication...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES In a subgroup of patients with cerebral infarction, noninvasive diagnostic explorations fail to disclose the etiology. We studied the clinical course and the usefulness of transesophageal echocardiography to diagnose complex aortic atheroma plaques in patients with cerebral infarction of uncertain cause with recurrence of ischemia. PATIENTS AND METHOD In a study po...

In Reply: We would like to thank Drs. Fletcher and Sharma for their interest in our study.1 We are aware of their study that was published in June 2013 to assess the benefits of transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) simulation training in cognitive skill acquisition among anesthesiology residents in the United Kingdom.2 However, in April 2013, at the time of the initial submission of our artic...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Ross procedure is one of the surgical procedures for correction of severe congenital aortic insufficiency. Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography is essential for optimal surgical evaluation. Furthermore, it is able to assess the blood volume profile and the need for administration of vasoactive drugs during surgery. CASE REPORT This is a 15-year old teenage...

BACKGROUND The Randomized Evaluation of Long-Term Anticoagulation Therapy (RE-LY) trial compared dabigatran 110 mg BID (D110) and 150 mg BID (D150) with warfarin for stroke prevention in 18 113 patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. METHODS AND RESULTS Cardioversion on randomized treatment was permitted. Precardioversion transesophageal echocardiography was encouraged, particularly in...