Guidelines Released for Quantitative Monitoring of Critically Ill and Surgery Patients Using Echocardiography

The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE; Morrisville, NC, USA) has published clinical guidelines describing how and when echocardiography can be used for medical and surgical therapy in adult patients. The guidelines were published in the January 2015 issue of the American Society of Echocardiography.

Although echo is already used for qualitative monitoring of critical care patients and in the operating room, intensivists, cardiologists, trauma physicians, and anesthesiologists are increasingly using transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) for hemodynamic assessment of critically ill patients. The guidelines document is intended to help guide therapy using specific clinical parameters and scenarios in which echo can be used, and strengths and limitations of its use for hemodynamic monitoring.

Dr. Porter of the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC; Omaha, Nebraska, USA) who chaired the writing group for the new guidelines document, added, “Carefully controlled studies are needed to determine when echo can or should be used for hemodynamic monitoring, since it is relatively inexpensive and noninvasive, and in some ways could be more accurate and predictive of outcomes than some other traditional methods, such as pulmonary artery and central venous catheters.”

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