Echocardiography and assessing fluid responsiveness: acoustic quantification again into the picture?
Accurate identification of fluid responsiveness has become an important issue in critically ill patients. Pulse pressure and stroke volume variation have been shown to be reliable predictors of fluid responsiveness. Apart from these two valuable techniques, echo-Doppler offers an interesting alternative for estimating the adequacy of filling. Acoustic quantification is a high-tech tool for delineating the blood-tissue interface on-screen in real time. Cannesson and coworkers utilized this technique in ventilated patients to assess stroke area changes, with the intention being to predict fluid responsiveness.
Poelaert
Jan
J
University Hospital Ghent, Department of Intensive Care Medicine and Cardiac Anaesthesia, De Pintelaan, Gent, Belgium. jan.poelaert@ugent.be
Roosens
Carl
C
D000162:Acoustics; D001794:Blood Pressure; D016638:Critical Illness; D017548:Echocardiography, Transesophageal; D006801:Humans; D012119:Respiration; D013318:Stroke Volume; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left