[Intracardiac echography in interventional cardiology].

Since its early development, interventional cardiology relies on radiological imaging to show and describe vascular structures involved in percutaneous treatment. However, the development of the transcatheter approach to structural heart disease has highlighted the limits of X-rays in guiding interventions targeting soft heart tissues because of their low radiological resolution. Transesophageal echocardiography has thus gained an important role in many catheterization laboratories that perform percutaneous structural heart disease interventions. The endorsement of this technique necessarily requires expertise of echocardiographers and anesthesiologists for endotracheal intubation, thus increasing the logistic complexity of the procedure. Hence, the idea to apply ultrasonography directly into the heart, thus the introduction of intracardiac echography. At present, there are two different technological implementations of intracardiac echography related to the use of an electronic or mechanical ultrasonic transducer placed at the tip of a catheter inserted into the cardiac chambers, most frequently via femoral venous vascular access. In this review, we describe the potentials, advantages and limits of intracardiac echography, as well as its operative function, current use, and future developments.