Attachment of a balloon to a transesophageal echocardiographic transducer for improvement of contact with the esophageal wall.
We attached a water-inflated balloon to a transesophageal probe to improve contact of the transducer with the esophageal wall and used it in 26 patients with congenital heart disease. Balloons for this study were made for use in hemostatic therapy for esophageal varix. The contact of the transducer with the esophageal wall was successfully improved in all the patients, which resulted in improvement of the signal-to-noise ratio in both two-dimensional and Doppler echocardiography. The appropriate filling volume of water was within 5 ml to avoid compression of the left pulmonary vein and to avoid the artifact of multiple reflection.
Satomi
G
G
Department of Pediatric Cardiology, Tokyo Women's Medical College, Japan.
Park
I
I
Kikuchi
N
N
Sasaki
S
S
Nakamura
K
K
Momma
K
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004452:Echocardiography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D014159:Transducers