Perioperative haemodynamic management: is echocardiography the right tool?

This review analyses the application of perioperative echocardiography as an important tool in the management of haemodynamic impairment.

Recently, echocardiography has demonstrated utility in preoperative assessment for both cardiac and noncardiac surgery. There is also evidence that, using diagnostic methods, echocardiography could be used as an image-based technique comparable with standard catheter-based monitoring techniques in high-risk patients. Echocardiography can be performed both intraoperatively and during the postoperative period in the ICU and is therefore being considered a potential tool to assess haemodynamic instability.

Echocardiography has recently gained popularity among anaesthesiologists and intensive care practitioners because it provides a pathophysiological picture of haemodynamic impairment, allowing a more detailed understanding of the static or dynamic parameters on which clinicians usually rely when making decisions.