Technology update: intracardiac echocardiography – a review of the literature

Abstract

The development of new imaging tools helps in better investigation of cardiac structures and function by showing detailed images during interventional procedures. Intracardiac echocardiography plays a pivotal role as an intraoperative real-time imaging tool during invasive cardiac procedures. Initially, this echocardiographic technique was particularly useful when transthoracic image quality was insufficient and to avoid general anesthesia for transesophageal imaging. Nowadays, intracardiac echocardiography is routinely used in several cardiac invasive laboratories to support several types of procedures, such as extraction and implantation of cardiac devices, electrophysiological mapping, ablation, and endomyocardial biopsies. This review gives an overview of the basic principles of intracardiac echocardiography and examines its applications in the different settings of invasive cardiology.

Phased-Array Transducer for Intracardiac Echocardiography Based on 1–3 Piezocomposite

“…The visualization of the heart becomes possible due to the application of ICE and ICE has become an indispensable equipment for various percutaneous, interventional, and electrophysiological procedures (Bartel et al, 2014;Enriquez et al, 2018). ICE catheters can be divided into rotational catheters and phased-array catheters (Vitulano et al, 2015). Among them, the phased-array catheter has wider application potential because of its higher frequency range and ability of Doppler and color flow imaging.…”