• D S Braden, L Leatherbury, F A Treiber, and W B Strong.
• Section of Cardiology, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta 30912-3710.
• Am. Heart J. 1990 Nov 1; 120 (5): 1166-72.

AbstractThis study evaluated the effect of intracardiac shunting on the accuracy of thoracic bioimpedance-derived cardiac output determinations. Twenty-six patients, ranging in age from 3 months to 17 years, underwent cardiac catheterization during which simultaneous Fick and impedance measurements of cardiac output were obtained. The subjects were divided into three groups: 10 children with no intracardiac shunts, nine children with predominant left-to-right intracardiac shunts, and seven children with predominant right-to-left intracardiac shunts. Positive correlations between impedance and Fick-derived cardiac output determinations were obtained in the non-shunt group (r = 0.84), with lower correlations in the left-to-right shunt group (r = 0.70). In the right-to-left shunt group, the impedance derived cardiac output correlated with Fick pulmonary flow (r = 0.82), but the variability was unacceptably large. Although further study is needed, impedance cardiography appears to have validity as a methodology in pediatric critical care and cardiovascular health research.

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