Echocardiography before non-cardiac surgery: current knowledge, guideline recommendations, and clinical evidence – a narrative review
Viktoria Mertin, Alexandra Stroda, Tobias Bruns, Giovanna Lurati Buse · 2026
Read Echocardiography before non-cardiac surgery: current knowledge, guideline recommendations, and clinical evidence – a narrative review by Viktoria Mertin, Alexandra Stroda, Tobias Bruns, Giovanna Lurati Buse (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13562307.txt.
Description
Viktoria Mertin and three colleagues review whether heart ultrasound before non-cardiac surgery earns its place, weighing new diagnoses found, management changes triggered, and outcome effects. Their 2026 narrative review also lines up the freshest European and North American guideline advice side by side. Postoperative heart complications rank among the commonest serious harms of surgery worldwide.
Scanning does surface new diagnoses in a relevant share of patients, findings suggest, but studies on effectiveness stay limited. Data on how often findings actually change management are scarce, and proof of outcome benefit remains inconclusive. Both guideline families endorse scanning for symptomatic patients and reject routine use, though real differences between them persist. The authors catalog the knowledge gaps and propose research priorities, from yield studies to trials on whether scan-driven decisions help patients at all.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Viktoria Mertin, Alexandra Stroda, Tobias Bruns, Giovanna Lurati Buse |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 32037 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |