Transesophageal echocardiography — technique and standard views

Abstract

In 1971, Side and Gosling from Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London, England, reported that ‘the close proximity of the mediastinal vessels, especially the aortic arch, to the esophagus has stimulated the development of an ultrasonic Doppler shift esophageal probe as a nonsurgical technique for estimating aortic arch blood velocity in the conscious patient’ [1]. This brief report, dealing with continuous-wave Doppler recordings from the descending thoracic aorta in humans, was the first to make use of esophageal ultrasonography. Two experimental studies using this approach with prototype transducer systems to assess blood flow dynamics and wall motion of the thoracic aorta in dogs followed in 1972 and 1975 [2, 3].KeywordsMitral ValveLeft AtriumTransesophageal EchocardiographyLeft Atrial AppendageLeft Atrial Appendage ThrombusThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.