Oral Gastric Suctioning Effect on Transesophageal Echo

During heart surgery images of the heart are taken with transesophageal echocardiography. The images track how the heart is doing during surgery. It is normal practice to place an oral gastric tube in the stomach during heart surgery. The oral gastric tube is used to suction out stomach contents to avoid potential aspiration and avoid stomach acid build up. The purpose of this research study is to see if the images of the heart have better quality after your stomach has been emptied. This project hopes to help determine the best method to obtain the better quality images of the heart during cardiac surgery.