The Clinical Application and Usefulness of transesophageal Echocardiography
- Author:
Kee Sik KIM
1
;
Sung Ho HUR
;
Yoon Nyun KIM
;
Young Kuk KIM
;
Kwon Bae KIM
Author Information
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords: Transesopageal echocardiography
- MeSH: Arrhythmias, Cardiac; Coronary Vessels; Echocardiography; Echocardiography, Transesophageal; Esophageal Stenosis; Heart; Heart Defects, Congenital; Heart Diseases; Methods; Varicose Veins
- From:Journal of the Korean Society of Echocardiography 1995;3(1):49-57
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
- Abstract: BACKGROUND: During the past few years, transesophageal echocardiography(TEE) became one of most impartant method to detect various cardiac disease. But it was performed less than 10% of transthoracic echocardiography(TTE) in most of echocardiographic laboratoties because of major and minor complicatios associated with this procedure. The purposes of this study are to evaluate the clinical applications and the usefulness of transesophageal echocardiography in various cardiac disorders. METHOD: From 1990 to 1995, 942 cases were included in this study. All subjects were taken TTE and TEE simultaneously The causes of request, related side effect, cause of failed cases, and the benefit of TEE compared to TTE were analysed. The benefit of TEE were classified into major and minor benefit. Major benefit was defined as to diagnose the disease or to change the therapeautic method by TEE. Minor benefit was defined as to have additional findings by TEE whic could not be enrolled in major benefit. RESULTS: 1) The success rate of TEE was 95.5%(900/942). In 42 failed cases(4.5%), 19 were interrupted procedure earlier, 16 were failed to insert the TEE probe, 4 cases showed arrhythmia, and 3 cases had esophageal stricture or varices. 2) The causes of request were to assess the prosthetic valve function(35.5%), cardiac source of embolism(23.7%), valvular heart disease(22.7%), congenital heart disease(10.2), aortic disease(2.7%), endocarditis(2.3%), cardiac mass(1%), and coronary artery disease(1%), in orders. 3) The benefit of TEE was 77%, congenital heart disease was revealed greatest benefit(97%), but major benefit was highest for the evaluation of cardiac source of emboli(100%). CONCLUSION: TEE was very useful method for the detection of intra-cardiac and aortic abnormalities. TEE is a relatively safe procedure but it is a semi-invasive method and has few complications. So it is wise to apply TEE as adjuvant method of TTE.
