OBJECTIVE To assess the diagnostic potential of transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography for the detection of traumatic cardiovascular injuries in patients suffering from severe blunt chest trauma. DESIGN Prospective study over a three year period. SETTING A regional cardiothoracic centre. PATIENTS 134 consecutive patients (94 M/40 F; mean age 38 (SD 14) years) suffering from s...

To compare the diagnostic yields of transesophageal and transthoracic echocardiography in the detection of potential cardiac sources of embolism, 63 patients (mean +/- SD age 63 +/- 15 [range 18-87] years) with transient ischemic attacks or stroke underwent both procedures. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed a potential cardiac source of embolism in 14% (nine) of the patients, all of whom ...

AIMS To evaluate the relationships between measures of left ventricular (LV) filling dynamics at cadmium-zinc-telluride (CZT) imaging and indexes of LV diastolic function at transthoracic echocardiography. METHODS AND RESULTS Two hundred and forty-seven patients underwent myocardial perfusion imaging at rest and after stress with a low-dose CZT protocol and a baseline transthoracic echocardio...

Transthoracic echocardiography has become increasingly popular in clinical practice. It is used for the functional evaluation of patients with various cardiovascular diseases. Its use has been extended further in routine screening for cardiovascular health and in preoperative risk assessment before non-cardiac surgery because it is non-invasive, easy to perform, reproducible, and cost-effective...

BACKGROUND Carcinoid heart disease is a rare form of valvular heart disease. We sought describe the spectrum of carcinoid heart disease identified by echocardiography and cardiac MRI. METHOD AND RESULTS Two hundred fifty-two patients with carcinoid syndrome underwent a range of investigations including 2D transthoracic echocardiography, 3D transthoracic echocardiography and transesophageal ec...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Ruptured sinus of Valsalva aneurysm to right cardiac chambers is an uncommon lesion in Western countries. The prognosis is usually serious unless the condition is promptly treated surgically. For this reason an accurate anatomical and functional evaluation is necessary. The main purpose of this report is to compare the usefulness of multiplane transesophageal echocar...

Transoesophageal echocardiography identified a pacemaker lead infection in a patient in whom transthoracic echocardiography was negative and there were no specific signs of skin inflammation over the pulse generator.