Transoesofageal Echocardiography with contrast

[MattDuke]

Hello,

Can anyone suggest a clinic in the UK where I can get a
Transoesofageal Echocardiography with contrast (PFO test) privatly. Hoping for less than £500 if possible.

Cheers

Matt

[Keiron]

Parworth are probably your best best. We have used them for our work divers in the past.

Cheers
Keiron

[Emma Faid]

Cost at Papworth Hospital for a private TTE/TOE study (with contrast) should be around £290.

[MattDuke]

Cost at Papworth Hospital for a private TTE/TOE study (with contrast) should be around £290.

Excellent, not too bad! Cost in Norway? IMPOSSIBLE! The norwegian medical society will not permit a PFO check, without non-diving illness. Personally speaking, if I continue to push the mix dives next year, I'd really like to know if I have PFO, as many of these dives are going to react badly to a shunt & in simple terms I will change my diving if I have PFO.

In the grand scheme, 290 notes is not really a problem. Plus I can get home for a weekend. :D So far (Since 1992) I've been "Bend Free" but now we are pushing the depths/times more than I've done before, and a few of us have decided that we are not confident in the schedules without being sure we have no PFO.

Thanks for the heads up. Any idea of the contact info I need?

Cheers
Matt

[IainC]

Cost at Papworth Hospital for a private TTE/TOE study (with contrast) should be around £290.


Thanks for the price check, been wondering how much these things are.
Have a friend who found out he had a PFO *after* a nasty bend.

I recall a DOC lecture where it was said that the PFO test was not very accurate or reliable though, is this a new and improved thing? (since 2000, say?)

[Andy Moll]

If they are familiar with Diving then they are very accurate and grade the size of the hole by number of bubbles that go across in a valsava manoeuvre

None – don’t worry keep diving
0-5 bubbles - don’t worry keep diving
5-15 have a limitation placed upon your diving (Typically 15m EAD) – PFO fix candidate
more than 15 new hobby or PFO fix

but a lot depends upon how you dive as well, I had been diving 27 years with PFO known about for 10 but only became clear that I needed it fixed as I was changing how I was diving, shorter surface intervals and wanted to move to trimix….

Tip, if you do not have private medical insurance, take it out before you have the test that way if you need it fixed…….because afterwards you would have to declare it, bill is high if you are paying £5-7k or if you are lucky and can get it done on NHS 2-3 years waiting as it is unlikely the hole you would have would be life threatening otherwise you would have known about it already…

[Tom Hennessy]

Matt

Try Alf Brubakh, Professor of Environmental Physiology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.

He is the Norwegian top man in Transoesofageal Echocardiography re decompression

Speciality: Physiological responses to extreme environments and biomedical instrumentation. Main activities during last 10 years related to decompression from dives or to altitude / space. This includes both experimental and clinical work.

He may be able to do you, and if he has an experimental subject, maybe for free!

Kontor: 1.etg, MTFS*3116
Telefon: +47-735-98904
Faks: +47-73
E-mail:Alf.O.Brubakk@medisin.ntnu.no
Postadresse:
Institutt for sirkulasjon og bildediagnostikk

You can mention my name - its OK!

Tom Hennessy

[Tristan Green]

Matt

He may be able to do you ... an experimental subject ... maybe for free!

You can mention my name - its OK!

Tom Hennessy
Good luck Matt,

For some reason I am thinking "visions of Frankenstein" :eek: . Would you trust Tom? :D

Best of luck,
Tristan

[MattDuke]

Matt

Try Alf Brubakh, Professor of Environmental Physiology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim.

He is the Norwegian top man in Transoesofageal Echocardiography re decompression

Speciality: Physiological responses to extreme environments and biomedical instrumentation. Main activities during last 10 years related to decompression from dives or to altitude / space. This includes both experimental and clinical work.

He may be able to do you, and if he has an experimental subject, maybe for free!

Kontor: 1.etg, MTFS*3116
Telefon: +47-735-98904
Faks: +47-73
E-mail:Alf.O.Brubakk@medisin.ntnu.no
Postadresse:
Institutt for sirkulasjon og bildediagnostikk

You can mention my name - its OK!

Tom Hennessy

Thanks Tom! Really appreciate that.

A friend of mine Dr Jan Risborg had been trying to help this end too, I'll contect Alf and see what he can do. :) Only problem is that it costs way more to fly to Trondheim, than it does to the UK! Madness I know.

To Tristen, Jan Risborg is a Norsk Navy diving doc, and he does some of our "HSE" medicals for teaching for free, on the condition that we entertain is house of horrors and help with research, and teach courses in his civi club. No problem for me to wh*re myslef in the name of science, HSE medicals are not cheap!

Now lets just hope it was all a waste of time, and the PFO comes back negative. :)

[Helen (AKA Hellvet)]

i had mine done privately by Dr Wilmshurst at shrewsbury - but he does have a long waiting list...cost was £160 for the transthorarcic test, plus £300 for his time. He doesn't usually use a transoesophageal test.

A friend has just has hers done at Royal Cornwall Hospital Treliske privately, and hers cost about £1000 for both tests plus the hospital charges and consultants fees...

Another friend just had his done on the NHS at Treliske for free but has had to wait since the end of may!

so thats 3 PFO's in our club in the last 12 months - but who's counting?!

[Josepherely]

Transesophageal - not a pleasent experience (think deep throat), if you just want to know if you have a pfo/shunt or not then you don't need a complicated test at all, a simple bubble detection echo in your head with a medium introduced into you and a valsalva, if the bubbles pass via a shunt - you have a problem, if they don't you don't. Alternatively a transthoaraic is also very effective at detection, considerably more pleasent and easier to perform.

I have had a all three methods, however the first method, transesophageal did not pick anything up. Paradoxically the simplest test (simple bubble detection) is the most reliable, however it has the least diagnostic detail (ie you have a pfo/shunt or you don't).

[Sutty]

Don't forget that even something as "innocuous" as as trans-oesophageal echo has a complication rate and the complications include death (rarely). As a large proportion of the population (including divers) have a PFO, I'd want a fairly good reason to have the test.

[MSutcliffe]

Hello,

Can anyone suggest a clinic in the UK where I can get a
Transoesofageal Echocardiography with contrast (PFO test) privatly. Hoping for less than £500 if possible.

Cheers

Matt

Dr Tudor Codreanu (tudor.codreanu AT nhs.net) at Dr Grays Hospital in Elgin (scotland) was offering PFO tests for free not long ago. Don't know if he still is, but might be worth a quick email

If you going up that way, then take a look at http://www.moraydiving.com aswell, and have a day out diving in the Moray firth with Bill Ruck, who I can recommend as an excellend skipper who makes a mean curried potatoe lunch!


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