[Diagnosis of pulmonary thromboembolism by transesophageal echocardiography. Report of a case].

We describe the case of a 73-year-old man, admitted after several days of moderate dyspnea, followed by sincopal episode. Transesophageal echocardiography clearly demonstrated a high resolution image indicating thromboembolus of the proximal right main pulmonary artery. The patient's clinical conditions were moderately impaired; a treatment with heparin followed by warfarin was started. At 15 and 30 days interval, TEE controls were performed, showing an incomplete but evident resolution of pulmonary thromboembolism, associated to an improvement of clinical ECG and scintigraphic parameters. Our TEE observation, in accordance with the small number of similar observations reported in literature, showed a clear direct visualization with high resolutive diagnostic possibilities for pulmonary thromboembolism; successful resolution was confirmed by repeated TEE studies.