Philips' Multiplane TEE for Pediatric Cardiac Patients is Smallest Available

As part of the latest Vision release for the Philips iE33 intelligent echocardiography system, the microTEE transducer provides pediatric cardiologists with a diagnostic tool for imaging the hearts of newborn patients.
Due to the larger size of previously available pediatric TEE transducers, small babies have been impossible to image during critical cardiac catheterization or surgical procedures. As a result, high-risk procedures have been done routinely on these tiny patients without transesophageal echocardiography images available to the interventionalist or surgeon.

Building on Philips’ existing 2D technology, the microTEE transducer is roughly one-third the size of previous pediatric TEE transducers, allowing physicians to ‘turn on the lights’ for the first time for their tinier patients and providing the images they need during interventional procedures. Available globally in summer 2009, the new microTEE is also entering trials for adult patients requiring TEE imaging but who have difficulty tolerating standard TEE probes.