Contemporary Practice of Echocardiography in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement

The contemporary practice of perioperative imaging and procedural guidance for transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has evolved greatly in recent years. This has been both a cause and an effect of changes in the way we provide anesthesia for these procedures. While valve sizing with multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) has decreased the use of general anesthesia (GA) chosen solely to facilitate intraprocedural transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), a shift towards greater use of monitored anesthesia care (MAC) and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) was already underway.
Source: Journal of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Anesthesia - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Source Type: research