Supraglottic Airway Use for Transesophageal Echocardiography: a Safe Alternative to Deep Sedation for Patients With High-risk Cardiopulmonary Disease. (SGA-TEE)

Increasingly, non-operating room anesthesia (NORA) cases are being performed on patients with high risk for needing advanced airway management, ie patients with morbid obesity, chronic hypoxemic lung disease, obstructive sleep apnea.

Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) exams are one example of this. While a TEE is typically a short, diagnostic procedure done with deep sedation, deep sedation poses an increased risk of hypoventilation and hypoxemia in patients with cardiopulmonary disease. It is desirable to avoid endotracheal intubation for TEE exams, as the procedure is short and can easily be done without muscle relaxation.

Moreover, securing the airway with an endotracheal tube (ETT) is not without significant risk. The use of a supraglottic airway (SGA) may offer an alternative for patients receiving a TEE who are high risk candidates for deep sedation with a natural airway.

The investigators hypothesize that the TEE procedure can be done successfully, without interruption, with an SGA in place. Our secondary hypothesis is that SGA use in high-risk patients may be safer than deep sedation, as there may be less episodes of hypoventilation and hypoxemia.

The investigators propose a prospective randomized control trial to compare TEE exams done with deep sedation (control group) to those done with SGA (intervention group). Our primary outcome will be TEE study completion, and secondary outcomes will focus on the safety profile of the two groups.