Echocardiography and Anaesthesia

There has been growing interest in the use of perioperative echocardiography in patients undergoing non‐cardiac surgery, and also in the acute care setting. This chapter examines some of these developments in the context of current anaesthetic practice. Focused echocardiography has the potential to guide pre‐operative optimisation as well as intra‐operative and postoperative management. In aortic stenosis, echocardiography is used to assess the anatomy of the aortic valve, grade stenosis severity, and assess left ventricular function. The major advantage that echo has over conventional haemodynamic monitors is that as well as being able to provide a comprehensive haemodynamic snapshot, it provides a wealth of structural information, enabling diagnosis of the underlying cause of haemodynamic instability. hTEE is a miniaturised, single‐use, transoesophageal echo probe recently developed for haemodynamic monitoring in the peri‐operative setting. After surgery, the indications for urgent critical care echocardiography are persistent unexplained hypotension and persistent unexplained hypoxaemia.