Prospective National Audit of Major Gastrointestinal Complications of Transesophageal Echocardiography Studies in Children

BACKGROUND: Perioperative trans-esophageal echocardiography ('TEE') is widely used for the assessment of anatomy/repair of congenital cardiac defects. It is recognised that there are risks associated with its use. AIMS: We wished, by means of a contemporaneous prospective national audit over a six-month period, to establish what proportion of TEE studies in children are complicated by major upper gastrointestinal or upper aerodigestive tract trauma. METHODS: After obtaining appropriate local institutional ethics committee approval, a national prospective audit of the rate and severity of gastrointestinal complications of trans-esophageal echocardiography studies in anaesthetised adult cardiology and cardiac surgical patients was conducted by the Association of Cardiothoracic Anaesthesia and Critical Care in the United Kingdom and Ireland during the twelve months of 2017. During the second six months of the audit, the Congenital Cardiac Anaesthesia Network (an organisation including anaesthetists with a paediatric cardiac anaesthetic practice in all the United Kingdom cardiac surgical centres) prospectively audited the incidence of such complications of TEE studies in children. RESULTS: A total of 1,059 studies were included in this six-month paediatric audit. There were no reports of the specified major complication. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: The zero incidence of the major complication is consistent with a worst possible incidence of five per thousand TEE examinations. CONCLUSIONS: Such potentially reassuring information could be included in discussions with patients or families about the risk of trans-esophageal studies in children.