Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography for pulmonary embolectomy without cardiopulmonary bypass.

This case report describes a patient with massive pulmonary embolism and acute circulatory failure in whom transesophageal echocardiography permitted the diagnosis of thrombi in the main pulmonary truncus and in the right branch and guided intraoperatively the surgical embolectomy performed under simple venous inflow occlusion because of a contraindication to heparin administration. Transesophageal echocardiography seems to be a very helpful technique to diagnose promptly massive pulmonary embolism and a very useful tool at the time of operation to guide the embolectomy.