Background: Three-dimensional color flow Doppler (3DCF) is a new convenient technique for cardiac output (CO) measurement. However, to date, no one has evaluated the accuracy of 3DCF echocardiography for CO measurement after cardiac surgery. Therefore, this single-center, prospective study was designed to evaluate the reliability of three-dimensional color flow and two-dimensional pulse wave Doppler (2D-PWD) transthoracic echocardiography for estimating cardiac output after cardiac surgery.
Methods: Post-cardiac surgical patients with a good acoustic window and a low dose or no dose of vasoactive drugs (norepinephrine < 0.05 μg/kg/min) were enrolled for CO estimation. Three different methods (third generation FloTrac/Vigileo™ [FT/V] system as the reference method, 3DCF, and 2D-PWD) were used to estimate CO before and after interventions (baseline, after volume expansion, and after a dobutamine test).
Results: A total of 20 patients were enrolled in this study, and 59 pairs of CO measurements were collected (one pair was not included because of increasing drainage after the dobutamine test). Pearson's coefficients were 0.260 between the CO-FT/V and CO-PWD measurements and 0.729 between the CO-FT/V and CO-3DCF measurements. Bland-Altman analysis showed the bias between the absolute values of CO-FT/V and CO-PWD measurements was - 0.6 L/min with limits of agreement between - 3.3 L/min and 2.2 L/min, with a percentage error (PE) of 61.3%. The bias between CO-FT/V and CO-3DCF was - 0.14 L/min with limits of agreement between - 1.42 L /min and 1.14 L/min, with a PE of 29.9%. Four-quadrant plot analysis showed the concordance rate between ΔCO-PWD and ΔCO-3FT/V was 93.3%.
Conclusions: In a comparison with the FT/V system, 3DCF transthoracic echocardiography could accurately estimate CO in post-cardiac surgical patients, and the two methods could be considered interchangeable. Although 2D-PWD echocardiography was not as accurate as the 3D technique, its ability to track directional changes was reliable.
Keywords: Cardiac output; Cardiac surgery; Three-dimensional color flow doppler; Two-dimensional pulse wave doppler.