An asymptomatic patient was discovered to have a large right atrial myxoma by transthoracic echocardiography. Preoperative considerations included the possibility of satellite lesions, left atrial origin, and a question of tricuspid valve involvement. Subsequent operative transesophageal echocardiography demonstrated single-stalk attachment in the right atrial septal wall and no satellite lesio...

In 16 adult patients, we performed continuous intraoperative two-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography (2DTEE) to help elucidate the mechanism of myocardial dysfunction that accompanies liver transplantation. In 4 of the 16 patients "paradoxical" motion of the interventricular septum consistent with right ventricular failure was seen. An additional three of the 16 patients showed right a...

OBJECTIVES Atrial fibrillation is an important risk factor for systemic embolism. A number of clinical studies demonstrated the beneficial effect of anticoagulant therapy for the prevention of embolism. But there has been no study on the fate of left atrial thrombus demonstrated by transesophageal echocardiography in the course of anticoagulation therapy. METHODS Thirteen patients, demonstrat...

Mitral Valve Aneurysm (MVA) is rarely reported and occurs most in association with infective endocarditis of the aortic valve. In our case, the 46-yr-old Chinese man was referred to our hospital with dyspnea and orthopnea. Transesophageal echocardiography during operation revealed a localized, thin-walled saccular structure in the anterior leaflet that bulged into the left atrium, and severe mi...

Transesophageal echocardiography offers a noninvasive technique for the continuous monitoring of cardiac performance. The combination of 2-dimensional echocardiography and Doppler velocitometry provide assessment of cardiac anatomy, valve function and, ventricular loading conditions. Although transesophageal echocardiography has become accepted for perioperative monitoring, it is typically used...

BACKGROUND Transcatheter left atrial appendage closure is an alternative therapy for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation patients. These procedures are currently guided with transesophageal echocardiography and fluoroscopy in most centers. As intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) is commonly used in other catheter-based procedures, we sought to determine the safety and effectiveness of intra...

Transesophageal echocardiography has advantages over transthoracic technique in defining morphology of atrial structures. Even though real time three-dimensional echocardiographic imaging is a reality, the off-line reconstruction technique usually allows to obtain higher spatial resolution images. The purpose of this study was to explore the accuracy of off-line three-dimensional transesophagea...

Traumatic aorta rupture survival depends on early diagnosis requiring aortography. Aortography is the "gold standard" method, but it is time-consuming and may be dangerous in trauma patients with multiple organ injuries. Transesophageal echocardiography is a noninvasive technology that can be performed at the bedside. We report two cases in which transesophageal echocardiography enabled us to m...