Transesophageal Echocardiography During Liver Transplantation

Written by: David Kaplan, MD, and Dmitri Bezinover, MD

Reviewed by: Sonia Vaida, MD

Since Thomas Starzl, MD, PhD, performed the first successful liver transplant in 1967, optimal intraoperative hemodynamic monitoring has been debated. In the early years, transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) was reserved primarily for patients undergoing cardiac surgery, but is increasingly used during liver transplantation.

Many studies have examined the use of TEE during liver transplantation. Schumann et al