Clinical InvestigationEchocardiography in the Very YoungThe Miniaturized Multiplane Micro-Transesophageal Echocardiographic Probe: A Comparative Evaluation of Its Accuracy and Image Quality
Section snippets
Methods
Approval for the study was obtained through the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Institutional Review Board. All infants weighing <5 kg who underwent intraoperative TEE at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta between October 2009 and September 2013 were identified through a review of our institutional electronic echocardiography database. Data collected from the medical records included age and weight at the time of surgery, cardiac diagnosis, type of operation performed, cardiologist performing
Results
The study included 220 transesophageal echocardiograms, 110 each for the MTEE and PTEE. The groups were matched 1:1 for the primary cardiac diagnoses listed in Table 1. MTEE patients weighed less (3.15 ± 0.58 vs 3.70 ± 0.52 kg, P < .001) and were younger in age (24 ± 38 vs 52 ± 58 days, P < .0001) than PTEE patients. There were no reported complications, such as unintentional extubation, esophageal perforation, or significant hemodynamic compromise, with either probe placement or positioning
Discussion
This study shows that the diagnostic accuracy of the MTEE was comparable with that of the PTEE despite a worse quality score for the MTEE. With an increasing number of complex congenital cardiac surgical procedures being performed during early infancy, the need for a miniature probe that could by used for intraoperative assistance with surgery was quite evident. Such patients undoubtedly benefit from accurate transesophageal echocardiographic imaging during cardiac surgery, as missed residual
Conclusions
The quality of images obtained during intraoperative studies performed with the MTEE is inferior compared with images obtained with a PTEE. Despite such differences in quality, however, the MTEE and PTEE are similar in their ability to obtain accurate and clinically diagnostic echocardiographic information. Although our study findings suggest that images obtained with the MTEE are not of equivalent quality to those obtained with a PTEE when both probes could be used in the same patient, we
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