The emerging role of intracardiac echocardiography – into the ICE age

Intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) is an imaging technique that is becoming increasingly available as an alternative to transoesophageal echocardiography to guide percutaneous interventional procedures. The probe can be inserted under local anaesthesia and is principally used during closure of atrial septal abnormalities. The main advantages of ICE over transoesophageal echocardiography include the elimination of the need for general anaesthesia, clearer imaging, shorter procedure times and reduced radiation doses to the patient. Within this article we review some of the current applications of ICE and how to image from within the heart.