Hand-held echocardiography during complex electrophysiologic procedures

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Medical Imaging
• Electrophysiology

Background:

• Complex electrophysiologic (EP) procedures require accurate and timely cardiac pathology recognition.
• Standard echocardiography (SE) can be time-consuming and prone to complications during EP procedures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the diagnostic accuracy and evaluation time of hand-held echocardiography (HHE) versus SE.
• To assess the feasibility of HHE as a practical diagnostic tool during complex EP procedures.

Main Methods:

• One hundred patients undergoing complex EP procedures were evaluated using SE and HHE.
• Cardiac pathologies were assessed at the beginning and immediately after the procedure.
• Diagnostic accuracy, evaluation time, and method agreement were compared.

Main Results:

• HHE demonstrated significantly shorter opening and evaluation times than SE (P<0.001).
• High agreement was observed between HHE and SE in diagnosing various cardiac pathologies, including aortic regurgitation, mitral regurgitation, pericardial effusion, and left ventricular thrombus.

Conclusions:

• HHE provides comparable diagnostic accuracy to SE for cardiac pathologies during complex EP procedures.
• HHE offers a significant time advantage, making it a practical and reliable tool for these interventions.