Transesophageal echocardiography is a highly sensitive and specific tool for identifying cardiovascular sources of embolism in perioperative and critical care settings.
Alerts anesthesiologists to TEE utility in embolism-prone patients; leaves open need for prospective validation in critical care.
Transesophageal echocardiography has become an invaluable investigation in patients with cardioembolic events because of its high sensitivity and specificity for defining detailed structure and function of the cardiovascular system. Patients who receive anesthesia and critical care may be at risk of systemic embolism from various cardiovascular sources. The main factors associated with embolism include intracardiac lesions such as thrombi, vegetations, and tumors; cardiac anomalies; and vascular disease, e.g., aortic atheroma. In this review article, the authors describe how transesophageal echocardiography may be used to identify various cardiovascular sources of embolism, provide risk stratification, influence medical therapy, and refine clinical decision making in patients receiving critical care and anesthesia. With these improvements, it is hoped that better patient outcomes may be achieved in the perioperative period.
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Tan et al. (2007) studied this question.
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