Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Anesthesiol. Jul 27, 2015; 4(2): 30-38
Published online Jul 27, 2015. doi: 10.5313/wja.v4.i2.30
Transthoracic echocardiography assists appropriate pulmonary artery catheter placement: An observational study
Chong Oon Tan, Laurence Weinberg, David Andrew Story, Larry McNicol
Chong Oon Tan, Laurence Weinberg, David Andrew Story, Larry McNicol, Department of Anaesthesia, the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria 3084, Australia
Chong Oon Tan, Laurence Weinberg, David Andrew Story, Larry McNicol, Department of Surgery, Melbourne Medical School, the University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
Author contributions: Tan CO conceived and designed the study, was involved in data collection, analysed and interpreted data, drafted and revised the manuscript, gave approval for the final manuscript, and agrees to be accountable for all aspects, accuracy and integrity of the work involved; Weinberg L and Story DA assisted in conceptualisation and design of the study, was involved in data collection, analysed and interpreted data, revised the manuscript, gave approval for the final manuscript, and agrees to be accountable for all aspects, accuracy and integrity of the work involved; McNicol L assisted in design of the study, revised the manuscript, gave approval for the final manuscript, and agrees to be accountable for all aspects, accuracy and integrity of the work involved.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Austin Health Human Research and Ethics Committee (H2012/04776) and was carried out in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration on research involving human participants.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment. All study data was de-identified for analysis.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There were no conflicts of interest to declare.
Data sharing statement: We hereby regretfully decline to have the following data components of our study placed in the Dryad Repository: Technical appendix; Statistical code; Raw dataset.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Chong Oon Tan, MBBS, FANZCA, PG Dip Clinical Ultrasound - Staff Anesthesiologist, Department of Anaesthesia, the Austin Hospital, 145 Studley Rd, Heidelberg, Victoria 3084, Australia. drchongtan@gmail.com
Telephone: +61-3-94965704 Fax: +61-3-94596421
Received: April 6, 2015
Peer-review started: April 8, 2015
First decision: April 27, 2015
Revised: May 12, 2015
Accepted: June 1, 2015
Article in press: June 2, 2015
Published online: July 27, 2015
Processing time: 111 Days and 13.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is an efficacious adjunct to pressure waveform guidance for guiding appropriate pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) placement. With the required equipment and expertise, TTE is a rapid and safe tool for confirming whether the PAC is placed too far (the PAC balloon seen beyond the proximal RPA) or not far enough (the body of the PAC seen in the right ventricle but the PAC balloon not seen in the main PA or right PA). This application may assist in reducing complications related to PA rupture or PAC induced arrhythmias.