ABSTRACT
Successful performance of radial intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) requires a thorough understanding of its creation, of unique tomographic imaging planes, as well as detailed knowledge of three-dimensional intracardiac anatomy. As radial ICE principally provides intracardiac imaging in a tomographic perspective, an understanding of intracardiac anatomy as assessed by other tomographic imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging facilitates a simplified approach to ICE imaging and a shortened learning curve. The ‘anatomic standard’ for image presentation typically presents the view of the area of interest from above, as if looking at the heart from the arterial trunks down toward the inferior vena cava; whereas the ‘radiological standard’ format of imaging presentation presents a view on the scan plane from below, looking at the heart from the inferior vena cava upwards to the cardiac base. The superior vena cava–right atrial junction view is used in evaluating the right atrial appendage, and in identifying the crista terminalis.
