title: Continuous thermodilution cardiac output measurement in intensive care unit patients.
abstract: A new continuous thermodilution cardiac output measurement technique and companion flow-directed pulmonary artery catheter were evaluated in intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Continuous cardiac output was monitored for 6 hours in each patient, and, at selected intervals, a series of bolus thermodilution cardiac output determinations was made and averaged for comparison. A total of 222 data pairs was obtained in 54 patients. The cardiac outputs ranged from 2.8 to 10.8 L/min. The linear regression is represented by the following equation: continuous thermodilution = 0.99 bolus thermodilution + 0.02. The correlation coefficient r was 0.94, the Syx was 0.54. The mean relative error was 0.3%, and the standard deviation of the relative error was 11.5%. The absolute measurement bias was 0.02 L, and the 95% confidence limits were 1.07 and -1.03 L. The results demonstrated that the new continuous thermodilution cardiac output measurement technique provided acceptable accuracy and was considerably easier to use in the clinical situations studied in the ICU.
authors.affiliation: InterFlo Medical, Plano, TX.
authors.forename: M L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Yelderman
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ramsay
authors.forename: M D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Quinn
authors.forename: A W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Paulsen
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: McKown
authors.forename: P H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Gillman
mesh_terms: D002302:Cardiac Output; D002407:Catheterization, Swan-Ganz / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003422:Critical Care; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006801:Humans; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D013815:Thermodilution