Echocardiography in the evaluation of thoracic trauma.

Echocardiography has become a useful diagnostic modality in the evaluation of cardiovascular injury after thoracic trauma. Valuable information about cardiac wall motion, valvular function, pericardial effusions, and ventricular volume status can be obtained without significant risk. More recent application for the diagnosis of traumatic aortic disruption provides a safer, easier, less expensive, and more accurate method for detecting these injuries. Cardiac evaluation with TTE is unsuccessful in approximately 20% of examinations and is unable to provide the image resolution of the more invasive transesophageal approach.