Resting echocardiography has a clear role for resolving diagnostic questions in surgical patients, such as identifying the basis for suspicious systolic murmurs or new dyspnea on exertion. Outside these indications, resting echocardiography does not contribute significant additional prognostic information to usual clinical evaluation. It is not useful as a screening tool to identify surgical patients at risk for cardiac complications.

Conditions: preoperative(pre-op) assessment, asymptomatic patients, low to intermediate-risk non-cardiac surgery

Diagnostic Tests: echocardiography (TTE, echo)

Sources

• Fleisher LA, Fleischmann KE, Auerbach AD, et al. 2014 ACC/AHA guideline on perioperative cardiovascular evaluation and management of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2014 Dec 9;130(24):e278-333. (PubMed)
• Halm EA, Browner WS, Tubau JF, Tateo IM, Mangano DT. Echocardiography for assessing cardiac risk in patients having noncardiac surgery. Ann Intern Med. 1996 Sep 15;125(6):433-41. (PubMed)
• Kristensen SD, Knuuti J, Saraste A, et al. 2014 ESC/ESA Guidelines on non-cardiac surgery: cardiovascular assessment and management: The Joint Task Force on non-cardiac surgery: cardiovascular assessment and management of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA). Eur Heart J. 2014 Sep 14;35(35):2383-431. (PubMed)
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