Impact of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography in the surgical management of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

This investigation reports on the use of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography as an adjunct to surgical septal myectomy in 256 patients. Before cardiopulmonary bypass, intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography showed unsuspected abnormalities in 43 patients (17%), which resulted in altering surgical plans for 24 patients (9%); the most common abnormalities that required surgical revision were primary mitral valve abnormalities (prolapse or flail).