Transesophageal Echocardiography: A New View of the Heart

Excerpt

Over the last several years, cardiology has benefited from the introduction of sophisticated new technologies and interventions which have significantly improved patient care, although at increasing cost to patients and the health care system. Unfortunately, wide-scale carefully controlled trials are rarely done to document the efficacy of these costly procedures or their superiority over existing modalities. Transesophageal echocardiography is another relatively new imaging modality with equipment costing from $90 000 to $225 000 and a patient charge of between $500 and $900, a charge similar to that of upper endoscopy, but as much as twice that of a regular transthoracic