Usefulness of transesophageal echocardiography in detecting changes in flow dynamics responsible for malperfusion phenomena observed during surgery of aortic dissection.

Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) was performed in order to study the flow dynamics in the descending aorta during surgery of aortic dissection Stanford A. TEE was seen to be a sensitive and accurate method to promptly detect severe decrease in retrograde pump flow and to clarify some of the mechanisms that can result in malperfusion during cardiopulmonary bypass.