• Max Andresen, Mauricio Henríquez, Marcelo Mercado, Gonzalo Farías, Carmen Castillo, Carlos Benítez, and Alberto Dougnac.
• Unidad de Tratamiento Intensivo Médico, Facultad de Medicina, Hospital Clínico Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. andresen@med.puc.cl
• Rev Med Chil. 2005 Jul 1;133(7):761-6.

BackgroundCardiac output can be measured non invasively by transesophageal Doppler. This is an alternative to measure it by thermodilution with a catheter in the pulmonary artery.AimTo compare both methods of cardiac output measurement.Material And MethodsSimultaneous measurement of cardiac output by transesophageal Doppler and thermodilution with a catheter in the pulmonary artery in four male critical patients, aged 60+/-12 years, hospitalized in a University Hospital. The Bland and Altman method to compare the concordance between two measurements, was used.ResultsForty measurements were performed. The results of both methods had a correlation coefficient of 0.98. According to the Bland and Altman method, the difference between both methods was -0.5 L with a precision of 0.52 L/min (95% confidence interval -1.51 to 0.52 L/min). Considering that a change between two sequential measurements is considered significant when the difference is more than 15%, both measurements agreed in 83% of cases, that there was a change in cardiac output.ConclusionsTransesophageal Doppler is a promising non invasive technique to measure cardiac output in critical care patients. It becomes a valid alternative to the thermodilution technique. This preliminary experience must be confirmed in a larger series.

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