Clinical Study To Evaluate Cardiac Function By Transesophageal Echocardiography In Coronary Artery Bridging Surgery

Continuous, intraoperative, real-time, assessment of left ventricular (LV) function is possible using LV dimensions determined by transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) with automatic endocardial border detection (ABD). The precision and accuracy of this technique during cardiac surgery are limited by cardiac beat-to-beat variability, lung ventilation and random noise. By adding real-time, on-line signal averaging, previously demonstrated to minimize these unwanted effects, we investigated the immediate impact of coronary artery graft surgery (CABG)with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) on LV systolic and diastolic function.Methods. 16 elective CABG patients were studied intraoperatively before and soon after CPB with invasive hemodynaniic monitoring and TEE+ABD. Signal averaged, LV short-axis area was determined continuously throughout the cardiac cycle. Simultaneously, the following indices were determined...