Intracardiac ultrasound assessment of atrial septal defect: comparison with transthoracic echocardiographic, angiocardiographic, and balloon-sizing measurements.
OBJECTIVE
Accurate evaluation of the size, location and adjacent structure of an atrial septal defect (ASD) is very important in the selection of patients for further management. We directly compared the utility of transthoracic echocardiography, angiocardiography, balloon sizing, and intracardiac ultrasound (ICUS) in the detection of ASD.


METHODS
Twenty-one children underwent an ICUS study of ASD after routine clinical and laboratory studies. All patients had received transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), cardiac catheterization, cineangiography, and balloon sizing before the ICUS to evaluate the ASD.


RESULTS
There was a significant correlation between the ICUS-derived ASD diameter and the other methods (p < 0.001). The balloon-sizing diameter was estimated by the equation: TTE diameter x 1.09 + 3.9 mm. There was a good correlation between the predicted and measured balloon-sizing diameter (r = 0.963; p < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
It is worthwhile spending a few minutes to perform ICUS during cardiac catheterization since it will provide more detailed information on and high resolution images of atrial septal morphology, especially for patients undergoing transcatheter closure by device.
Jan
S L
SL
Division of Cardiology, Department of Pediatrics, Taichung Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University, No. 160, Section 3, Chung-Kang Road, Taichung 407, Taiwan. sljan@vghtc.vghtc.gov.tw
Hwang
B
B
Lee
P C
PC
Fu
Y C
YC
Chiu
P S
PS
Chi
C S
CS
D000293:Adolescent; D000790:Angiocardiography; D002404:Catheterization; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006344:Heart Septal Defects, Atrial / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018084:Ultrasonography, Interventional