Incremental value of transesophageal echocardiography in the evaluation of patients before percutaneous closure of atrial septal defects

Abstract

We have recently read with great interest the article by Chenet al. (1) entitled ‘‘Transcatheter device closure of atrial septaldefects guided completely by transthoracic echocardiography: Asingle cardiac center experience with 152 cases’’ published inAnatol J Cardiol 2018; 20: 330-5. We recognize authors’ effort inthe report describing the transcatheter device closure of atrialseptal defects (ASDs) fully guided by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), which was a single-cardiac-center experience including 152 cases. On the other hand, we believe that there aresome major drawbacks that need to be addressed here.