[Blunt traumatic aortic injury: importance of transesophageal echocardiography]

Traumatic injury of the aorta can be a fatal complication of blunt thoracic trauma and if it is survived and diagnosed, surgery will be necessary. A prerequisite is a prompt imaging diagnosis of the injury in order to plan an optimal therapeutic procedure for the patient, depending on the severity of the injury. Digital angiography has now been replaced by non-invasive methods, such as computer tomography (CT) or transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). Using TEE it is possible to carry out a staging of the injury and this classification together with the corresponding clinical symptoms determines the therapeutic treatment regime. In many cases a staged treatment is standard procedure. In addition to the establishment of an adequate blood pressure (for prophylaxis of the open rupture), monitoring during the course of treatment may be necessary. The main advantage of TEE is that the examination of these mostly multiple traumatised patients can be carried out at the bedside. This review describes the use of TEE as a diagnostic tool in the early phase and for continuous monitoring of an initially conservative treatment regime.