ABSTRACT
Since its development for clinical use more than three decades ago, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has seen widespread use for diagnostic purposes and has been used to guide many new interventional cardiac procedures. Periprocedural echocardiographic guidance is most useful for device closure of interatrial or interventricular communications, and TEE guidance is mandatory for interventional repair of the mitral valve. When handling the intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) probe, the interventionalist can immediately adjust views to his or her needs, but maintaining those views when their hands leave the probe is another matter. Device closure of interatrial communications is among the most frequently performed noncoronary interventions in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. For device stability, the size of tissue rims is important but also whether they are characterized as firm or pliable. Whether or not TEE or echocardiography is at all helpful for a particular intervention is determined by several factors.
