A multicenter evaluation of a new continuous cardiac output pulmonary artery catheter system

Objective: To validate a new system of continuous cardiac output monitoring. Design: Multicenter, prospective, nonrandomized clinical study. Setting: Four university hospitals. Patients: Forty-seven adult intensive care unit patients. Interventions: Pulmonary artery catheterization. Measurements and Main Results: Continuous and bolus cardiac output measurements were obtained over 72 hrs. The 327 continuous cardiac output measurements compared favorably with bolus cardiac output measurements (bias = 0.12 L/min, precision = +/-0.84). The continuous cardiac measurement was not adversely affected by temperatures of < 37 degrees C or > 38 degrees C, high (> 7.5 L/min) or low (< 4.5 L/min) cardiac output values, or duration (72 hrs) of the study. Conclusions: This continuous cardiac output system provides a reliable estimate of cardiac output for clinical use if applied in conditions similar to this study. The combination of a continuous measure of cardiac output with other continuous physiologic monitoring (arterial and mixed venous oxygen saturation, oxygen consumption, etc.) may provide important information that no single parameter could achieve.