TEE in Cardiac Arrest
Fri, 09/22/2017 - 9:40am
Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE) in Cardiac Arrest
- Inspired by Dr. Patrick Ockerse gave a phenomenal lecture at the Yellowstone Ultrasound Conference in Jackson Hole last May
- There are lots of benefits to using TEE during cardiac arrest
- Evaluate actual cardiac function as opposed to less reliable markers of cardiac function
- Is the rhythm actually asystole? If not, should you do chest compressions? If yes, can that help prognosticate?
- Evaluate quality of chest compressions
- Ability to cardiovert with probe in place
- Minimize time off the chest to assess for cardiac function
- Check for the H&T’s for example tamponade or right heart strain suggesting PE
- Significantly improved image quality as compared to TTE
- You don’t need to be perfect, you just need to get a view of the heart
- Some downsides to TEE
- Lack of experience with TEE and mental road blocks to utilizing the technology
- The patient must be intubated
- TEE probes are expensive
- Are you still interested and want to learn more about TEE? Check out this and this
Resources:
- Blaivas M: Transesophageal echocardiography during cardiopulmonary arrest in the emergency department. Resuscitation 2008; 78:135 – 140.
- Vignon, Philippe, Tobias M. Merz, and Antoine Vieillard-Baron. "Ten reasons for performing hemodynamic monitoring using transesophageal echocardiography." Intensive Care Medicine (2017): 1-4.
- http://www.scancrit.com/2015/03/03/tee-cardiac-arrest/