Transesophageal echo computer tomography: a new method for dynamic 3-D imaging of the heart (echo-CT)

Summary form only given. A device for the acquisition of standardized parallel echocardiographic imaging planes covering the entire heart and the large vessels has been developed. It consists of a conventional transesophageal probe with an additional fully flexible distal portion, which serves as housing for a freely moving ultrasonic transducer. The transducer is pulled back from the most distal part of the tube in 0.5-mm increments, providing exact parallel and equidistant imaging planes. At each plane, one complete cardiac cycle is recorded with ECG triggering delivering images in 30-ms intervals corresponding to the echocardiographic frame rate and cover the dynamic cardiac anatomy of one heart cycle. Thereafter, a dedicated software for dynamic 3-D reconstruction allows the computation of any desired tomographic view of the beating heart and the large vessels in real time