Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in emergency and intensive care medicine represents an additional semi-invasive method to confirm or rebut suspected diagnoses in critically ill patients. Three-dimensional (3D)-TEE investigations are established in the clinical workflow of emergency and intensive care units because 3D-TEE investigations permit a differentiation of artifacts due to oblique views by simultaneous documentation of sectional planes and en face views of characteristic cardiac structures. Thus, the level of diagnostic validity can be significantly increased by 3D-TEE investigation. The main indications of TEE investigation in emergency medicine are hemodynamic instability due to myocardial, pericardial or valvular heart diseases as well as suspected endocarditis and aortic dissection.
Keywords: Aortic dissection; Emergency treatment; Endocarditis; Myocardial diseases; Valvular heart diseases.