Impact and Cost Effectiveness of Routine Intraoperative Transthoracic and Transesophageal Echocardiography on Surgical Decision Making in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction Congenital heart diseases (CHD) present with wide spectrum of lesions leading to diagnostic dilemmas and it is quite possible to miss correct diagnosis during preoperative transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) in an inadequately sedated child, especially in a busy outpatient setting. It is a routine practice in our center to do baseline TTE after induction of anesthesia followed by pre and postcardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in all CHD patients thus helping us review our surgical plan. Materials and methods All pediatric patients <18 years undergoing cardiac surgery from January 2013 to December 2013 at our tertiary care center in whom perioperative echocardiograhy was done were included. Appropriate sized TTE and TEE probes were used with the Philips iE33 echocardiography platform (Philips, Andover, MA). Results Out of total 352 pediatric cardiac surgical patients, perioperative echocardiography was done in 347(98.5%) patients. Baseline TTE showed new findings leading to change in surgical plan in 11 (3.1%) patients while additional new findings in baseline TEE were seen in 9 (2.6%). Post bypass TEE showed residual lesions requiring a CPB rerun in 19 (5.5%) patients. Intraoperative echocardiography was found to be cost effective with an estimated savings per patient of ₹ 3950 to 5373($61 - 83). Conclusion Intraoperative echocardiography is an important tool in armamentarium of perioperative physician which can be used to review diagnosis and help to formulate an informed surgical plan. Post-bypass transesophageal echocardiography is also useful as it identifies the residual lesions and establishes anatomical correction, which ultimately translates to lesser redo surgeries and a better postoperative outcome. How to cite this article Mishra A, Madhavan JS, Ghuman BPS, Raj R, Kumar A, Dutta V, Negi S, Tandon Y, Kumar A, Arya VK, Kumar B, Jayant A, Puri GD. Impact and Cost Effectiveness of Routine Intraoperative Transthoracic and Transesophageal Echocardiography on Surgical Decision Making in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery. J Perioper Echocardiogr 2014;2(1):3-9.