Perioperative Rescue Transesophageal Echocardiography in Intensive and Critical Status

Prior to clinical application of PReTEE, all participants designated must receive professional training. They need to receive lectures focusing on the clinical thinking flowchart of rescue transesophageal echocardiography, in conjuntion with the simulator-based training. The discriminating ability of PReTEE will be further assessed in real clinical scenario, that is, within the specified 120 seconds participants in the PreTEE group need to provide the leading causes with regard to difficult separation from cardiopulmonary bypass in high-risk cardiac surgical procedures. All examinations will be supervised by a TEE expert owning to safety considerations but without help in views acquirement or interpretation. After completion of study assessments, the TEE expert will perform a standard comprehensive TEE, the results of which was reported to the attending cardiac anesthesiologist in charge of the patient and the recorders.

Before cardiopulmonary bypass separation, conventional TEE examinations will be performed within the specified 120 seconds. Then, the expert will also perform a standard comprehensive TEE; the leading cause should also be presented to the attending anesthesiologists and recorders.