Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography : official publication of the American Society of Echocardiography
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J Am Soc Echocardiogr · May 1995
Transesophageal transgastric echocardiography in infants and children: the subcostal view equivalent.
Transesophageal echocardiography has been limited in the assessment of congenital heart disease involving ventriculoarterial connections. These can be viewed with biplane imaging, but the angle of incidence does not permit assessment of gradients. To determine whether transgastric transesophageal imaging could provide this information, we examined 127 infants and children during cardiac surgery, ranging from 2.7 to 32 kg in weight and 1 day to 16 years in age. ⋯ Doppler estimates of pressure drops across the ventricular outflow tracts were within good limits of agreement with estimates obtained by manometry. There were no major complications from this technique. We conclude that the transgastric viewing plane enhances the usefulness of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography for diagnosis and evaluation of congenital heart lesions by permitting more complete echocardiographic examinations and detection of areas of residual obstruction across the ventricular outflow tracts.