Transesophageal Echocardiographic Findings of Intracardiac Events During Cardiac Assist

Abstract

Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is an easy, noninvasive and reproducible method for evaluation of left ventricular function, coronary flow patterns, and intracardiac blood flow patterns during cardial assist. TEE facilitated better management of the patients with LVAD and gave us the various information: (a) Observing the drawing catheter tip by TEE, it could be settled just above the mitral orifice to obtain the maximum bypass flow; in addition, dislocation of the catheter tip could be easily diagnosed. (b) The intracardiac thrombus could be clearly detected by TEE; it was removed without complications, weaning from left ventricular assist device (LVAD). (c) The left ventricular wall motion was periodically observed. The end systolic LV diameter (Ds) was decreasing and fractional shortening (%FS) was increasing as the natural heart recovery. Additionally, the preejection period (PEP) and the ejection time (ET) were measured. The ratio of PEP/ET was decreasing gradually. Ds did not alter with preload change during on-off testing unlike the other parameters. Ds seems to be the most reliable parameter for the natural heart recovery within certain amounts of bypass flow. (d) The flow velocity in the left anterior descending coronary artery could be measured by transesophageal Doppler method; it was clinically shown that counterpulsation produced a larger amount of coronary blood flow than copulsation.