Minute distance obtained from pulmonary venous flow velocity using transesophageal pulsed Doppler echocardiography is related to cardiac output during cardiovascular surgery.
OBJECTIVE
We studied the relationship between minute distance calculated from pulmonary venous flow (PVF) velocity tracing and cardiac output (CO) measured with thermodilution method in patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery.


METHODS
In 32 patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery, simultaneous measurements of hemodynamics including CO and transesophageal pulsed Doppler signals of PVF velocity were performed before and after surgical repair. Minute distance was calculated as the product of the heart rate and the sum of time-velocity integrals of PVF.


RESULTS
The minute distance after surgical intervention increased from 1121 +/- 347 cm x sec(-1) to 1764 +/- 538 cm x sec(-1) (p < 0.001; mean +/- SD), while CO increased after surgical intervention from 3.5 +/- 0.9 L x min(-1) to 5.3 +/- 1.1 L x min(-1). Simple linear regression analysis showed that minute distance was related with CO before and after surgical intervention (r = 0.81 and r = 0.76, respectively). The changes in minute distance were also related with those in CO (r = 0.80).


CONCLUSIONS
The present study demonstrated that minute distance obtained from the pulsed Doppler tracings of PVF velocity was related with CO during cardiovascular surgery in adults. These results suggest that the changes in CO could be estimated from minute distance in pulmonary vein.
Inatsugi
Mikiko
M
Department of Anesthesiology, Institute of Health Biosciences, The University of Tokushima Graduate School, Kuramoto-cho, Tokushima 770-8503, Japan.
Tanaka
Katsuya
K
Kitahata
Hiroshi
H
Nozaki
Junpei
J
Kawahito
Shinji
S
Oshita
Shuzo
S
D000368:Aged; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D002302:Cardiac Output; D013504:Cardiovascular Surgical Procedures; D018619:Echocardiography, Doppler, Pulsed; D017548:Echocardiography, Transesophageal; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016343:Monitoring, Intraoperative; D011652:Pulmonary Circulation; D011667:Pulmonary Veins; D013815:Thermodilution