Assessing aortic flow with doppler echocardiography in cardiogenic shock: A crucial diagnostic tool

Purpose: Cardiogenic shock still has a high mortality. In order to correctly manage these patients, it is useful to have available haemodynamic parameters, invasive and non-invasive. The aim of this review is to show the current evidence on the use of echocardiographic aortic flow assessment by left ventricular outflow tract - velocity time integral.

Methods: Publications relevant to the discussion of echocardiographic aortic flow assessment by left ventricular outflow tract - velocity time integral and cardiogenic shock, were retrieved from PubMed®.

Results: Left ventricular outflow tract - velocity time integral is an easily sampled and reproducible parameter that has already been shown to have prognostic value in various cardiovascular pathologies, including myocardial infarction and heart failure. Although there are still few data available in the literature, the LVOT-VTI also seems to have an important role in CS from prognosis to guidance in the escalation/de-escalation of vasoactive therapy and to support devices by allowing an estimate of patient's probability of response to fluid administration.

Conclusion: Aortic flow assessment can become a very useful invasive parameter in the management of cardiogenic shock.