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Transesophageal UltrasonographyAka: Transesophageal Echocardiogram

Indication
1. Suspected Pulmonary Embolism
  1. Patients too unstable to undergo VQ Scan
2. Aortic Dissection
  1. Popular option for Aortic Dissection assessment
3. Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm
Accuracy
1. Aortic Dissection
  1. Sensitivity: 97%
  2. Specificity: 75-90%
Advantage
1. Sensitive for hemodynamically significant emboli
2. Noninvasive
3. Fast
4. Widely available
Disadvantage
1. Misses small Pulmonary Emboli (only 13% sensitive)
2. Requires Sedation and trained technician

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This page was written by Scott Moses, MD. This page was last revised before 5/10/08, prior to consistent tracking of revision date. This page was last published on 5/10/2008. Please send comments and questions to the editor. Contact information may be found on the page About the Family Practice Notebook. These pages are best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0.