Anesthesia and ultrasound: riding the waves

Abstract

Esophageal echocardiography was first described in 19761 and it wasn’t long before it was introduced into anesthesia practice. In the mid-eighties, Smith et al. reported that regional wall motion abnormalities observed on TEE, were more sensitive than ECG monitoring in the detection of intraoperative myocardial ischemia.2 This led to an explosion in the use of intraoperative TEE monitoring across North America. Transesophageal echocardiography elevated the thinking of cardiac anesthesiologists to new levels, from a deeper understanding of mitral valve anat- omy to the subtle and complex nature of right ventricular dysfunction