Objective: Our aim was to provide an initial description of the usefulness of real-time 3-dimensional (3D) echocardiography when evaluating patients with infective endocarditis.
Methods: For this purpose, we describe 3 cases in which the usefulness of real-time 3D echocardiography is shown.
Results: Better definition of the morphologic characteristics of the vegetation and valvular apparatus was achieved with real-time 3D echocardiography. Furthermore, the information provided by the real-time 3D echocardiogram to the surgical team was accurate and direct because it was not based on detailed verbal information for performing a 3D mental reconstruction but was a simple image similar to what would be found in the operating room. In all cases, the information provided by the real-time 3D echocardiography was confirmed during surgery.
Conclusions: Real-time 3D echocardiography is an important tool for aiding diagnosis or for fine tuning a suspected diagnosis when traditional echocardiography is not completely clear for both medical and surgical decision making.