Non-invasive cardiac output determination: state of the art.
This review deals with recent developments in non-invasive cardiac output measurement. In the past few years significant progress has been made with semi-invasive transoesophageal echocardiography; the method now provides advanced facilities to measure cardiac output and other important characteristics of cardiac function. The method is, however, operator-dependent and the equipment used is expensive, which means that large-scale use on intensive care patients is not feasible. Whole-body impedance cardiography has recently shown good accuracy and flexibility in use, and seems to be the most promising method for the non-invasive measurement of cardiac output.
Kööbi
T
T
Department of Clinical Physiology and Nuclear Medicine, Tampere University Hospital, PO Box 2000, Tampere, FIN-33521, Finland. tkoobi@tays.fi