Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of cardiac output measurement obtained by a new continuous thermodilution cardiac output (CCO) pulmonary artery catheter compared to intermittent thermodilution (TCO) and the direct Fick method.
Design: Prospective open trial.
Setting: University hospital, intensive care unit.
Patients: 23 patients (15 surgical, 8 non-surgical) were monitored with the Intellicath pulmonary catheter. Cardiac output was evaluated by the three methods every 4 to 6h as long as the pulmonary artery catheter was necessary (8-96 h).
Results: The correlation coefficient between CCO and TCO was 0.92, no systematic bias was observed, and the relative error increased from 13.9% for a cardiac output of 21/min to 23.7% for an output of 101/min. When comparing CCO and Fick, the correlation coefficient was 0.89, no bias was detected, and the relative error increased from 20.4% for outputs of 21/min to 27.2% for outputs of 101/min.
Conclusions: CCO provides clinically acceptable measurements. At high cardiac outputs, the difference with other methods increases and the results must be cautiously interpreted.