Oral Gastric Suctioning Effect on Transesophageal Echo

Summary

During heart surgery images of the heart are taken with transesophageal echocardiography. The images track how the heart is doing during surgery. It is normal practice to place an oral gastric tube in the stomach during heart surgery. The oral gastric tube is used to suction out stomach contents to avoid potential aspiration and avoid stomach acid build up. The purpose of this research study is to see if the images of the heart have better quality after your stomach has been emptied. This project hopes to help determine the best method to obtain the better quality images of the heart during cardiac surgery.

Detailed Description

After induction, the transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) probe will be placed in the usual fashion for the cardiac surgery case. Five specific images that are part of a standard TEE exam will be obtained by TEE. An oral gastric (OG) tube will then be placed to suction stomach contents. The OG tube will then be removed and the same five images previously taken will be repeated. The five images reviewed from the TEE include mid esophageal four chamber, mid esophageal two chamber, transgastric basal, transgastric mid-papillary and deep transgastric. Two blinded and independent cardiologists who are echocardiography experts will review the before and after images and grade them for quality of the images. They will grade the images on a scale of 1-4 with 1 being excellent quality and 4 being very poor quality.

Eligibility Criteria

Interventions