Fifteen Years of Transesophageal Echocardiography in Cardiac Anesthesia in Russia.

Transesophageal echocardiography was first introduced in Russia as a component of anesthesiology monitoring in 2003 following its successful implementation in the practice of cardiac anesthesia in the United States and Western Europe. This novel opportunity for perioperative hemodynamic evaluation was enthusiastically adopted at several cardiac surgical clinics despite the presence of critical barriers. The most important of these were the lack of certification programs for anesthesiologists, limited equipment, and a lack of understanding of the responsibility of the anesthesiologist as the coordinator of perioperative therapeutic decisions. Although intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography as a part of the anesthesiology protocol has been introduced in less than 10% of Russian cardiac surgery clinics, a group of interested anesthesiologists has formed over the last 15 years. Both the technical conditions and professional mentality of anesthesiologists need to be changed substantially for successful further development of intraoperative echocardiography. This review aims to highlight the milestones, successes, and challenges in the implementation of intraoperative echocardiography in the practice of cardiac anesthesiology in Russia, which may be interesting to a wide range of cardiac anesthesiologists.

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