Revista portuguesa de cardiologia : orgão oficial da Sociedade Portuguesa de Cardiologia = Portuguese journal of cardiology : an official journal of the Portuguese Society of Cardiology
-
Echocardiography (echo) has gained increasing importance in cardiology as technological developments have enabled progression from one-dimensional to two-dimensional imaging and the inclusion of physiological information with the Doppler principle. Although three-dimensional (3D) echo is not a new concept, its use has been limited by image artifacts and the need for time-consuming offline processing. Despite several improvements since its introduction in the 1990s, real-time 3D echo was until 2007 limited to transthoracic studies, but a real-time 3D transesophageal (TE) echo probe has recently become commercially available. The objective of this article is to describe our initial experience with this probe, to assess its ability to visualize different cardiac structures and to discuss its advantages and shortcomings. ⋯ After a relatively short training period and without prolonging the study time significantly, we were able to visualize the various components of the mitral valve clearly and identify its anatomical relations; in our initial experience, this was the major advantage of the technique, which will probably become the gold standard for preoperative evaluation of mitral valve disease. Programming and guiding ASD closure is another promising area for 3D TE echo. On the other hand, imaging of anterior cardiac structures is poor and needs refinement.